Outlast: The Swarm
by OfficialFlannel
Summary: It all started with seeing something she never should have. Then the Walrider becomes too unstable and all hell breaks loose throughout the asylum and Ella Ross is determined to escape. She gains the help of investigative reporter Miles Upshur, who is determined to expose what Murkoff had done, and her friend, Waylon Park, now a variant and seemingly losing his sanity every second.
1. Wrong!

Ella Ross was kicked to the ground and then heard a grunt of pain as Miles followed. Waylon was huddled in the corner, muttering something about a woman named Lisa. Ella tasted the bitter copper flavor of blood in her mouth and she spits it out, staining the already cracked and dirty floor with her blood. Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall man in a clean dark blue suit, his icy blue eyes were full of cruel glee and his black hair was slicked back.

That man was Jeremy Blaire.

He smiled down at Ella, but the smile held no warmth as he cupped her face in his hand, "Congratulations. You ruined everything."

Then before Ella even knew what had happened Blaire shoved her violently to the dirty floor. The last thing she saw was Blaire's smiling face before his hard leather shoe connects with the side of her head and she blacked out.

_**X X X Four Hours Earlier. . . X X X**_

It was just another day at Mount Massive Asylum for Ella Ross as she drove up to the immense building, the sun barely starting to rise as she drove up to the asylum's gates, stopping at the guard's station/toll boot to give the guard her I.D.

"Good morning, Ms. Ross." smiled Logan, a young security officer

Ella returned the smile as she replied, "Morning, Logan."

Logan pressed a button in the booth and the gates of the asylum opened with a creak and she drove to the parking lot, found her usual parking spot, and parked her car. She got out, taking a deep breath of the cool mountain air and walked across the courtyard to the entrance of the asylum, walking straight through the doors, across the winding halls and finally stopped at an old-looking elevator. She got into the elevator and pressed a button which activated the lift, clamming elevator music started playing as it began its descent into the bowels of Mount Massive.

Moments later, she was joined the elevator by a young man dressed in a yellow plaid shirt and blue jeans. This was Waylon Park. He had short dark brown, almost black curly hair and a pale complexion. He smiled at Ella, but seemed nervous and fidgeted and twitched his hands, "G-Good morning, Ella."

"Hello, Mr. Park" smiled Ella

"How are things going?

"Supposedly the Morphogenic Engine Program is going well. I heard one of the scientists saying something about the "dream therapy" working quite well."

"That's good to hear"

Ella nodded and for the rest of the ride remained silent before a faint ding was heard and the doors of the elevator were opened. Waylon and Ella stepped out the lift and parted ways, with Waylon going to the server rooms which confused Ella because he didn't usually go in there but dismissed it as he probably had moved in there after getting promoted earlier this week, and Ella headed down to the patient cells to check on her assigned patient. She walked into his cell and he smiled, seeing her enter the room.

"Darling! Hello."


	2. Telling Stories?

Eddie Gluskin was a very tall and muscular man dressed in just a pair of blue boxers. He appeared to be around his late 40s. His hair was jet black, slicked back, an undercutting hairstyle which is neatly combed down and he had piercing blue eyes. He smiled at Ella when she entered his cell and she sat down across from him at his cot.

"Darling! Hello."

"Good morning, Edward."

"You look absolutely stunning today, my dear Ella."

Ella smiled, cheeks turning a light pink, "Thank you, Edward."

Eddie's face lit up in a smile again and reached out to grasp her small soft hands with his large and rough ones, "Please call me Eddie, darling."

"Okay, Eddie."

Eddie seemed rather charming, but Ella knew the truth about him.

Edward "Eddie" Gluskin was a mentally unstable and murderous serial killer who was sexually abused by his father and uncle when he was younger. That abuse seemed to have a very large mental strain on the young Eddie and it caused him to become mentally unstable and during his adulthood, he began murdering countless women across the United States before he was caught and admitted into Mount Massive Asylum.

But Eddie was actually kind, much to her surprise. She had been assigned to watch over him as a "special project" about two months ago. Since then she had developed a close friendship with the insane murderer if that even makes sense and they grew somewhat close despite what a Murkoff employee had told her before.

"Don't allow yourself to get too comfortable around Mr. Gluskin. He's a heartless killer and he'll probably use his charming nature to get close to you, then you could end up like his other "darlings"

They stared into each other's eyes and held hands for a while making idle conversation, before two Murkoff security guards came in, both holding electric batons which crackled with electricity. Eddie's smile faded into a terrified look as he realized what was happening, "No! No! No! You won't take me! You can't make me go into that machine!"

The head security guard grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up from his cot and dragged him away. As he was being dragged away, he looked frantically at Ella, "Ella! Ella, darling please, don't let them take me!"

Ella just stared sadly as he was taken, "I'm sorry, Eddie. I can't."

Eddie's face went from scared to rage as he screamed at her, "YOU ARE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM! YOU'RE A WHORE! AN UNGRATEFUL SLUT! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU HEAR ME!"

Then they rounded the corner and Eddie was gone.

_**X X X Meanwhile. . . X X X**_

Waylon headed straight into the underground lab servers rooms as soon as he got off the elevator and went into the back of it, behind several large machines with various buttons and switches. He sat down at a desk and opened up his laptop, accessing his email and began to type an email.

**"You don't know me. Have to make this quick. They might be monitoring.**

**I did 2 weeks of software consult at Murkoff Psychiatric Systems' facilities in Mount Massive. All sorts of NDA's I am very much breaking right now but seriously, fuck those guys.**

**Terrible things happening there. Don't understand it. Don't believe half the things I saw. Doctors talking about dream therapy going too deep, finding something that had been waiting for them in the mountain. People are being hurt and Murkoff is making money.**

**It needs to be exposed."**

Waylon sat back in his chair, looking at the words typed on the email and reread the message at least two more times before he sighed, "I hope this Miles guy gets this or this will all be for nothing."

Waylon was about to just press enter when he heard a voice at the entrance of the room, "Waylon Park? Are you in here? They've paged for you three times already."

Waylon panicked at hearing the voice and pressed the enter key on his laptop repeatedly, hoping it would send as he shut the computer and got out of his chair, walking to the front of the server room.

"Sorry. The connection was working, so I had to restart the system manually and-"

The man looked like another Murkoff security guard and he grumbled, annoyed, "Nevermind that! Why weren't you answering the page? I'll tell them you're incoming."

Waylon rushed past him and made his way to the Morphogenic Engie's control room, passing the receptionist desk hearing the guard stationed there grumbled, "Finally, Park's here!", and pushed open the double doors and made his way to the control room and heard Steve, a scientist exclaimed as he entered.

"Ah, for fuck's sake. They got Gluskin out of his cell. Page him again, we need this guy in here now. Tell him he's got fifteen seconds to keep his job. Christ. . ."

Waylon quickly walked up to Steve and sat down in front of the several computers and terminals, "I'm here, Steve. Don't worry!"

"Mr. Park. Finally. Where have you been? The Functional Imaging interface isn't talking to the ASL. We've got a patient thirty seconds out and we're blind inside his head."

Waylon went to work, typing in codes and checking several things to see if they were working. He sighed in frustration as it read loaded slowly.

A fellow colleague seemed to notice his annoyance and asked nervously, "I can call into the chamber. Ask them to delay?

"No. I don't need another performance evaluation. Mr. Park here is going to have us up and running before we even know it. Right, Mr. Park?"

That's when they brought in Eddie Gluskin.

He was fighting the guards as they dragged him to one of the engine's pods, yelling and thrashing, "I knew it was coming. You filthy fucking machines! You fucking machines! No! No, not again. No! No! Jack-booted fucks, I know what you've been doing to me. I know what you've been. . . Help! Help me! Help me, they're going to rape me! Rape! Rape!"

Suddenly as they were about to push Eddie into the pod, he broke free and rushed the glass, frightening Waylon as he banged against it, "Help me! Don't let them do this! Don't let them! You!", Eddie stared at Waylon, eyes full of fear and panic, "I know you can stop this! You have to help me! You have to. . ."

Eddie was pulled from the glass and pulled back down to the pods. He desperately yelled at Waylon, "Help me! Don't let them do this! Don't let them! You! I know you can stop this! You have to help me! You have to. . .", but it was useless as he was shoved into the pod and the engine began to work.

Waylon got out of his chair and he turned to Steve and the other man smiled, "You're finished, Mr. Waylon Park. You can leave. Don't expect anything but honesty in my review of your performance. "

Waylon then made his way back to the server room, he stopped just as he got to the door. It was slightly ajar and Waylon could have sworn he had closed it but dismissed his thoughts as he entered the room, going right into the back again to retrieve his laptop.

That's when everything went to hell.

As he rounded the corner to where his laptop was, he stopped as he saw someone sitting at the desk, Waylon's computer in his hands. It was Jeremy Blaire, and he looked up when he saw Waylon enter, "Somebody's been telling stories outside of class, Mr. Park."

Waylon's eyes widen as he turned swiftly around to escape, only to be shoved back into the room by a security guard and he was surrounded by others. Jeremy Blaire stood up, Waylon's laptop crashed to the floor as he did so,

"Mr. Waylon Park, consulting contract 8208. Software engineer with a level 3 security clearance. Graduated cum laude from Berkley, but still somehow not smart enough to realize that the last thing a fly ought to do in a spider's web is wiggle."

Waylon began to speak, "But this isn't what it looks like! I-"

The rest of his sentence was cut off as he was kicked the ribs by a guard and Blaire continued, "Somehow dumb enough to think that a borrowed laptop, onion router, and firewall patch would be enough to fool the world's leading supplier of biometric security.

"Stupid, Mr. Park. More than stupid-"

"Yes, really stupid" Waylon nodded, feeling like agreeing would be the best course of action.

"In fact, that was crazy. I'm afraid that we're going to have you committed. Mr. Park, will you willingly submit to forced confinement?"

Waylon didn't answer as he couldn't realize what was happening. He was going to be forcefully locked away like those crazed inmates of Mount Massive. They wouldn't do that! They couldn't do that!

But they could and they would.

"Did you hear that, agent?" smiled Blaire

The guard grinned, "He said yes, Mr. Blaire"

"Great. Oh! And did I just hear Mr. Waylon Park volunteer for the Morphogenic Engine program?

The security guard replied again, the grin on his face had no mercy, "That's what I heard, Mr. Blaire."

"That was brave, indeed, Waylon. The Murkoff Corporation and the onward march of science both appreciate your bravery and sacrifice. Maybe you could administer Mr. Park here a light anesthetic?"

Security Guard cruel smile went wide as he stepped close to Waylon, "Gladly.", shoving him to the ground, he kicked him in the face as hard as he could muster.

And it was lights out for Mister Waylon Park.


	3. Need More Space

Ella just stared at the space where Eddie Gluskin just was not even five minutes ago. She sighed, feeling sad that Eddie trusted her and she didn't even try to stop them. She could still hear his raging screams in her head.

"YOU ARE JUST LIKE THE REST OF THEM! YOU'RE A WHORE! AN UNGRATEFUL SLUT!"

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"**I'LL KILL YOU, YOU HEAR ME!"**

Ella sighed, rubbing her eyes, "He can't get me. He's locked away now.", she told herself that seemingly trying to convince herself that she was safe. She walked out of Gluskin's cell, staring once more at the insane killer's cot, turning off the light and shutting the door. She decided to check on Waylon, as she had nothing else to do.

She wished she hadn't

She walked down the hallways and rounded the corner, seeing the room labeled "Server Room", and carefully pushed open the door. She saw that there was a lot of people in the back, so she crawled up quietly to hear what they were saying, worried on her face when she heard a grunt of pain and cruel laughter. She heard Waylon's voice, in response to a question or something

"Yes, really stupid."

"In fact, that was crazy. I'm afraid that we're going to have you committed. Mr. Park, will you willingly submit to forced confinement?"

That was Jeremy Blaire, Murkoff's "Executive Vice President". Why was he in here?

Waylon didn't answer, too stunned it seemed.

"Did you hear that, agent?"

A guard turned to his boss and smiled, "He said yes, Mr. Blaire"

"Great. Oh! And did I just hear Mr. Waylon Park volunteer for the Morphogenic Engine program?

The security guard replied again, the grin on his face had no mercy, "That's what I heard, Mr. Blaire."

"That was brave, indeed, Waylon. The Murkoff Corporation and the onward march of science both appreciate your bravery and sacrifice. Maybe you could administer Mr. Park here a light anesthetic?"

The security guard nearest to Waylon gave the man a cruel smile as he stepped close to Waylon, "Gladly.", shoving him to the ground, he kicked him in the face as the young man's body went limp.

Ella's eyes widen as what just happened had sunk in. . .

Waylon was trying to do something that Murkoff didn't like and now he was going to be put that horrid program for the engine. She needed to help him, she was his friend and her co-worker. Maybe she could just quietly sneak out before she was caught by someone. She backed up slowly from the room. . .

. . .Only to bump into a guard that was hiding in the shadows. He grabbed her by her hair and threw her back into the server room. Blaire smiled down at the newcomer, "Well, Hello Miss Ross! Nice of you to drop by!"

"Mr. Blaire! I can explain-"

No, you don't need to explain anything, Ella. I already know that you are here to join our friend, Mr. Park here in the Morphogenic Engine program, am I right?" Jeremy Blaire smile was cold and it didn't reach his eyes.

"That's not-"

"Well, I commend both of you two hard-working employees for your bravery and sacrifice. But next time, you need to learn something, Miss Ross."

Jeremy leaned down, all traces of the fake happiness gone and his cold gaze looking straight through her soul, "Never. Fuck. With Murkoff, sweetheart."

"Does this one need some "anesthetic" too, Mr. Blaire?" asked the guard.

"Well, now that you mention, agent. She does. Do you mind?"

"Not at all"

The man pulled Ella up by her hair and clamped his hand over her mouth and nose, cutting off oxygen. Ella struggled against him, thrashing, kicking, and biting at his hand. But it was no use as she couldn't breathe and she slipped into unconsciousness.

"Sweet dreams, Ella," smiled Jeremy.

_**X X X**_

Ella and Waylon woke up slightly after a while but kept slipping in and out of consciousness. They were strapped to chairs in a restricted test chamber by a scientist dressed in a blue hazmat suit, his face uncovered. Then the scientist, a man named Andrew held open Ella's eyelids staring into her eyes.

"Open those eyes. You don't have to wake up, but open your eyes."

Suddenly Andrew struck Ella across the face twice hard in rapid succession. She moaned softly in pain and Andrew gave her a cruel smile, "What's the matter? Somebody hit you? Here, let me help. . .", then Andrew leaned in close and licked her cheek slowly, causing Ella to groan in disgust.

Then another scientist came in. They seemed to be Andrew assistant or something. He seemed nervous as he addressed the other man.

"Uh, Andrew? You getting these alerts?"

Andrew seemed annoyed as he grumbled, "Kinda busy here..."

"It sounds like real trouble. At the Engine. They said Hope made a lateral ascension."

"Billy Hope? Shit. And they're not happy about it?"

"No."

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Come on."

The two scientists rushed out of the room and the screen in front of Ella turned on and the Morphogenic therapy started. Rorschach tests and white noise flashed in front of her eyes as she tried to look away. Then the chamber turned dark, the test shutting down and Ella struggled to get free from her restraints, which were easily broken and she collapsed to the ground, the Rorschach test flashing in her vision before disappearing. There was a camera on a tripod in the front of the room and Ella grabbed it, feeling like she might need it. She then felt a wave of nausea hit her as she tried to stand. It was dark as she looked at the cell next to her, another patient banged on the glass, seeming to need help. Then a dark entity came into the room and tore him apart, splattering blood all over the glass walls in front of Ella's eyes.

She was let out by another variant, who ran as she came to the door. Now she needed to find Waylon. She searched the other cells until she came upon the last one in the hallway. She opened the door, it was pitch black and she turned on the camera's night-vision. She gasped as she saw Waylon.

His curly dark brown hair was a bit longer, the sides of it were buzzed away and a small soul patch on his chin had grown. Waylon had a bunch of wires sewn into his arms and held one up to his head, about to stab the wires into his skull, but stopped when he looked up at the new person in the room. He looked up at Ella, though he didn't seem to recognize her. His eyes seemed to have a layer of white over them and his face was noticeably scarred on one side, blisters and lesions on the right side of his face. He looked scared, tears forming in his dead white eyes as he repeated the same phrase over and over.

"Needed more space. . .I just needed more space. Can't lose them."

Ella's heart sunk as she realized what happened to her friend.

Waylon Park had become a variant.


	4. And This Little Piggy

Meanwhile, far above the underground laboratory of Mount Massive, a red jeep wrangler is driving up to the asylum gates. Miles Upshur, an investigative reporter, is in the driver's seat, fighting the urge to fall asleep as he drives. As he is arriving at the front gate, the forecast he was listening to starts to pick up static before going dark. Before exiting the car, Miles grabs his digital camcorder and a couple of pairs of batteries that he inserts into the camcorder to charge the night vision function implemented in the camera. The gates behind him close as he gets out of the Wrangler.

"Shit. . .well, I guess there's no going back, huh?" Miles muttered to himself.

Miles made his way to a nearby guards station, seeing a slumped over body in the chair. He pushed the body up to get a better look at the deceased security guard. He appeared to have been strangled to death, possibly by an escaped inmate.

Reading the I.D. badge on his shirt, Miles frowned, "Logan? Poor kid. . ."

Miles left the booth and pushed open the interior gate and pulled out his camcorder and filmed the asylum, zooming in and out to get a better view of the mental institute. Miles spoke to the camera.

"This is Miles Upshur, audio log number one."

"I start feeling sick just looking at this place. Mount Massive Asylum, shut down amid scandal and government secrecy in 1971, reopened by Murkoff Psychiatric Systems in 2009 under the guise of a charitable organization. Cell phone reception cut off abruptly a mile out, more like a jammer than lost signal. The Murkoff Corporation has a long track record of disguising profit as charity. But never on American soil. Whatever they thought they could get out of this place has to be big. Might finally be the story that breaks the bastards."

Miles put the camera away as he walked around the asylum's courtyard, and walked up the hospital's front step and tried to open the door. It wouldn't open, Miles cursed in annoyance, "Of course, the front door's locked."

Miles searched for another way inside Mount Massive and found a side gate, peeled upward and mangled like a crazed animal had torn through it. He crawled under it and made his way to another door, only to find that it was locked too. He sighed again but smiled when he saw an open window on the second floor and was reachable by the scaffolding. Miles climbed up the wooden beams of the scaffolding and pulled himself into the room.

The lightbulb in the room went out suddenly as he fell to the ground. Miles turned on the camera's night vision and looked around. The room he was in looked like a recreational room, but it was trashed. A bookshelf was toppled over, a destroyed desk was in the corner. Glass and wooden splinters littered the blood-stained carpet. Miles pushed the door open and exited the room. The rest of the asylum's lobby was in the same shape. Bloodied corpses, bullet-holes filled walls and doors, and gore splattered everywhere.

Miles continued walking down a hallway when a nearby bathroom door is shut, startling the reporter as he quickly made his way past it. He was met with a glass room, which was (of course) locked, so he had to backtrack and entered what looked like a small break room. a table was below an air vent, which was opened.

"Looks like this is the only way forward. Great."

He climbed up in the air vent and crawled to another opening, pausing as the bathroom he encountered earlier was seen and the someone burst out, looked around frantically, and then ran back in. Miles dropped down to another upper hallway and saw it was blocked with debris. He saw a nearby library and opened the door. He nearly vomited at the horrid smell coming from the room. He walked in, night vision illuminating the room and the bookshelves, which held dozens of human heads, all seemingly torn off from their bodies. Mile's rounded the corner, he saw a near gigantic pile of bodies, and in the middle of all the gore was what looked like a tactical cop or a soldier stuck on an iron pole like a pig on a spit. Miles carefully tired to move around him.

That's when the dead man awoke, gasping for breath as he looked around frantically and his gaze finally settled on the young man before him.

"They killed us. They got out. The Variants. You can't fight them. You have to hide. . ."

The dying man took a shaky labored breath as he tried to fight the feeling of death washing over him.

". . .Can unlock the main doors from Security Control."

Miles just stared at the dying man before as he uttered one last sentence, groaning in pain.

"You have to get the fuck out of this terrible place."

Then the soldier took one final breath and went limp, the light fading out of his eyes. He was gone. Miles kept filming as he started to speak again.

"Miles Upshur, audio log number two"

"I'm inside. Bodies everywhere. Blood. Burn marks. Heads lined up like bottles behind a bar, Dead Murkoff scientists hung from the ceiling; their badges say "Murkoff Advanced Research Systems". Murkoff's longtime M.O. has been to profit off the exploitation of supposed charity. Fuck the third world and bankroll another billion. How did Murkoff think they would make money off a building full of crazy people? There's some kind of tactical cop pinned like a pig on a spit. Tells me to get the fuck out and then dies. Would have been a good thing to hear when I could still leave the way I came."

Miles then left the library, gasping for breath as the scent of death was overwhelming in there. He made his way around another corner and saw his route was blocked by more debris, but he saw he could possibly squeeze through the gap between a bookshelf and the other clutter. He pushed himself between and started to squeeze past when he heard a raspy, deep voice rumbled behind him.

"Little pig!"

Miles was grabbed by a large and powerful hand and pulled from the gap. He came face to face with a giant variant. His face is horribly scarred and his nose was missing. With a powerful thrust, he threw Miles through the window and he fell straight down into the lobby. Just as he was about to black out from the pain he saw someone peer down at him from above. It looked like an old man in a makeshift priest outfit, the priest smiled down at him.

"And who are you, then?"

Miles didn't answer as the pain became too much and everything went dark.

_**X X X**_

Ella and Waylon made their way through the underground lab's desolate halls, the only sounds were the neverending sirens, which also bathed the hallways in an eerie red light as they flashed. Ella had to hold Waylon's hand to guide him around as the now insane Murkoff employee wouldn't move unless she pulled him along. He kept muttering to himself, something about a woman named Lisa and would always look around randomly, fear deep in his white eyes.

It broke Ella's heart to see her friend like this. Sadness turned to anger as she remembered who did this to him.

"Murkoff. . .bastards"

That's when the screaming was heard, it was a scream of pain or fear. It was a scream for help. Ella, against her better judgment, rushed ahead to see who or what was causing the yelling. When she, with Waylon being dragged behind, rounded yet another corner, Ella was surprised at what she saw.

Four deformed variants had strapped a scientist or a doctor to a table and were about to cut him with a crude looking knife open when one of the mentally ill patients noticed them.

"Gentlemen! We" the man smiled, his smile seemed genuine, but Ella knew better, "Have visitors!"

The others turned and looked at the newcomers. The variant in charge slammed the bladed tool into the table, just inches from the unfortunate scientist's head, who whimpered in fear, and turned their head to look at Ella. Ella and the scientist's eyes went wide.

Because the scientist in question was Andrew.

"I know you. You're Ross, aren't you? I took care of you. You were my patient!", Andrew yelled, frantic and terrified

"You two know each other, Well that changes things, doesn't it" smiled the head Variant, "We'll leave to get something better for you to torture the man who tortured you."

And with that the four variants wandered away, to possibly find something more suitable to the torture Andrew was going to endure at the hands of them or maybe even Ella. Sensing that he may be screwed, Andrew started to cry, looking at his former "patient" with watery eyes, "Whatever I did to you, it was just my job. I was just doing my job. You can't kill someone for doing his job! I didn't have a choice."

Ella looked at him, she didn't feel any ill feelings towards the scientist, despite being abused by him and certainly didn't want him to be hacked into by the insane patients, "Don't let them kill me, please! You have to help me!"

Ella made a decision, she picked up the knife and moved towards Andrew, raising the knife. . . .

Andrew closed his eyes, pleading, "Please! Please!"

Ella cut the sobbing scientist's restraints, "Go, get out of here before they come back"

Andrew got off the table and breathed a sigh of relief, "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Andrew then left, leaving Ella and Waylon to now wonder what the hell they were going to do. That's when a female voice sounded over the intercom.

"All Murkoff personnel, the emergency exit is through reception! I repeat all Murkoff personnel, the emergency exit is through reception!"

Well, that answered that question, huh?


	5. Sweet Meats

As the two employee-turned-patients walked through the halls after freeing Andrew, Ella was jumped by another variant, the man was badly scarred, wearing a torn and ragged brown jumpsuit and screamed in her face, "Dead! Gone! No other way! NO OTHER WAY!"

He was being chased after by something too as he ran after Ella as she, with Waylon clinging to her back like a small frightened child, ran into another room, she slammed the door as he rounded the corner when a horrid pain-filled scream and a ripping and tearing sound was heard. Whatever was behind the man had caught up to him, maybe it was the "Walrider" entity she had seen before. There was no way out of the room other than a vent, so after helping Waylon into it Ella crawled through it and saw a couple of guards, who had managed to survive the mayhem and were now trying to figure out a way out of Mount Massive. She heard a guard in the middle of his sentence, addressing the other worker.

". . .Bad idea. We get out of here through reception and let Murk Tactical clean it up."

The office worker replied If they get here in time. We need help now. If we get them on the radio the National Guard could be here within-"

"We don't even know if the radio works!"

"It's short wave. If the prison's got electricity they've got signal. And the lights are on."

"Murkoff has it under control."

The worker seemed unimpressive and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, I noticed. We need to get to that radio.

"Outside help doesn't come without outside attention. You want responsibility for every legally shaky thing you did on the Murkoff company payroll? I know I don't."

"It's too late to worry about that! This just has to stop."

"You're scared. You're not thinking straight. Let me make something clear. You try to radio outside for help, I'm gonna give you a whole new something to be scared of!"

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes."

The radio the in prison, of course!

That could work, all they had to do was get to the prison towers, which meant going up the elevator, through the Administration Block and through the prison itself and they would be home free!

So now with a semi-decent plan, they wandered through the hallways of the laboratory for what seemed like hours before finding a locked decontamination chamber which led to a elevator, so they went into the next room to try and unlock it, they saw someone was already inside the chamber, he were banging on the glass and yelled to Ella, Get me out of here! I need help-"

The man stopped yelling as Ella neared closer, "Wait, you aren't security? Thank God, I'm not a patient. I'm a doctor and I got trapped in here, trying to escape this whole mess. Press that button to open the airlock back up, please!"

Ella pressed the button the desk without hesitation. The two doors on either end opened. A variant was in the door's entrance, he pointed at the disguised doctor and growled, "Doctor!"

"No! No!"

The man tried to ran away, but was grabbed by the insane patient who slammed his head against the glass again and again until the man stopping struggling and moving. The variant dropped the body and ran out of the airlock, leaving Ella stunned as she just watched someone murder another right in front of her eyes. Ella led Waylon through the airlock and now they just had to get through the kitchen and they would be free.

The only thing standing in Ella and Waylon's way was a deranged buzz-saw welding cannibal.

Frank Manera.

_**X X X**_

_**Short chapter I know, but I wanted to give a sense of suspense or whatever**_. .

_**Ha Ha!**_

_**Anyway, the next chapter is going to be long as usual! So don't worry.**_


	6. Cat And Mouse? Butcher And Cow!

The cafeteria and kitchen looked like a war zone, slumped dead bodies everywhere in the chairs, blood splattered on the walls, floor, and the cafeteria's tables. Ella heard a buzzing sound in the kitchen and went to investigate, Waylon sensed something was wrong though and muttered, "Manera is near. Manera is near. He'll find us, he'll eat us. Frank's not good, not good."

Ella ignored Waylon's rambling and pressed forward, crawling through the cafeteria, past the tables and up to the serving table, where someone was sawing at a dead body and their head was stuffed into a working microwave. The man sawing at the body was only clothed in a pair of orange underwear, but was mostly covered in blood and was seemed like scars or tattoos.

"Huh, this must be that 'Manera' guy Waylon was muttering about. . ."

As they got close they could see that Frank Manera had matted dark gray hair, and thick blood-crusted beard covering his lower face. Ella tried to get past him, only to be startled by a loud bang as the corpse's head exploded in the microwave. The man looks up at Ella and Waylon as if noticing them for the first time, he growls in a deep, guttural tone.

"Don't you look at us. I love him."

The deranged cannibal strokes the corpse softly before suddenly plunging his teeth into it and started to tear chunks of flesh from the dead man and started to feed, ignoring the two and allowing them to slip past. They cross the hallways until they found themselves in a small hospital, it was as gore-covered as the rest of the asylum surprisingly. The two made their way through the hospital, trying to ignore the ever-growing sound of Frank Manera's buzzsaw growing closer and closer with every second. Waylon had taken to being clung to Ella's back as they made their way through the asylum and it was easier that way than trying to drag him by his hand everywhere.

After passing through a couple more rooms to gather batteries and other things, they found themselves in front of a locked door, the door locked shut by handcuffs which were cuffed to another dead body.

Ella grimaced in disgust, "Jesus, how many corpses are there in this hellhole?"

Seeing the only way through was that door Ella realized now they need to find the key, avoid getting carved like a Christmas turkey by the crazed cannibal Frank Manera and then get through the Administration Block to the Prison.

Easier said than done. . .

Ella's eyes went around her surroundings until they landed on the doorway on her left which was locked and blocked off, but saw she could climb over it and get to another part of the asylum. Leaving Waylon behind, she pulled herself up and landed on the other side of the hallway. It was dark in nearly every room in this part of the hospital, so Ella pulled up the camera and activated it's night vision and then made her way through the rooms. It took a while, but she finally found the key and was making her way back when she heard that horrible buzz sounding, along with Frank's guttural voice.

"I know you're close. I can smell you!"

Ella cursed as she kept going, she was close to the end of the hallway. All she had to do was get across the hall and make her way back to Waylon, all the while avoiding Manera. Then the worst possible thing happened: Ella ran right into Manera as he was leaving a room.

"Hello, meat!"

Ella ran as fast as she could down the darkened hallway with Frank hot on her heels, buzzsaw raised over his head, chanting, "Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!". She jumped over the door frame and landed on the other side, she heard Frank mutter, "I'll find another way. The meat is mine. . ."

Ella kept walking, key in hand, over to Waylon. His white eyes looked up at her and he gave her a small smile, and whispered, "Ella. . .is that you?"

Ella's eyes went wide as he said her name, she held Waylon's scarred face in her hands and asked uncertainly. "Waylon?"

Waylon nodded, his eyes seemed brighter as he spoke, "Ella, did. . did they make us watch the engine?"

Ella nodded sadly, "They did, Waylon. . .I got free before I could turn. . .", Ella stopped.

Waylon's face scrunched up in confusion, "What about. . .about me? Did you. . .save me?"

Ella looked down and teared up a bit, remembering the look of utter terror and sadness on Waylon's face when she entered his holding cell, "No, I'm sorry. . ."

"What happened to me. Get me a mirror. . or something. I need to see."

"Waylon-"

"Ella! Get. Me. A mirror please. . ."

Ella handed him the camcorder, which he turned to look at himself. Waylon saw his dead white eyes, his scarred face, and the wires stitched into his arm. He gasped, hands shaking as he ran his hand through his hair, "What have I b-become. . I'm one of them. I'm one of them. . ."

Ella's heart sunk as Waylon's mind shut down again as he muttered that phrase over and over again.

Waylon Park was gone yet again.


	7. My Apostle

Ella unlocked the handcuffs locking the door and pushed it open. As the two made their way through another darkened hallway, stopping when they reached what looked like a crematorium or a morgue of some sort. The morgue's furnaces were on and burning hot, red-orange fire lighting up the dark room.

Upon walking past a door which could have been an exit, suddenly Manera ambushes her, knocking the door in, and overpowering Ella and Waylon. He shoved Waylon to the ground and faced Ella, a sick grin on his face. They struggle with the small buzzsaw that Manera carried all this time as he tries to cut into Ella's neck. She fights back, trying to shove the crazed cannibal off of her.

"Get off of me, you psycho!"

"No, you're mine! The meat is mine!"

Frank soon became annoyed that his meat wasn't giving up that easily, then he saw the furnaces, "You stay there. And cook", and then Waylon and Ella were shoved into a furnace. Ella's face drained of color as she realized that Manera was going to try and cook them alive. She had to think fast and saw the back wall of the furnace they were was crumbling and decaying. Ella slammed her feet full force against the wall and it soon gave way to the assault and they were able to escape their fiery death.

She heard Frank yell in rage as they escaped, "No! No! You were mine!"

Climbing up on the furnaces holding area, Ella reaches the top, enters a maze of corridors, and encounter the cannibal once again. Running as Manera chases, he escapes, only to pass an airlock, flooded with gas, to witness a man dying inside. Deciding to open the airlock, Waylon and Ella went around into a broken in portion of the wall and escapes through an air vent. Moving throughout several airlocks and laboratories Ella and Waylon once again escaped the cannibal as he searches for them, all the while muttering, "The meat is mine. . .The meat is mine. . ."

They made it to a small room with some valves and succeeded in turning off the gas that is overflowing the airlocks, and then returned to the air-locked contamination chamber, which was now working properly. Ella carried Waylon through it and saw what they had been trying to get to this whole time: the elevator. They rushed into the elevator and pressed a button which would take the two all the back up to the Administration Block.

Ella gave a sigh of relief, "We did it. . .", she thought

"We're free. . ."

**X X X**

The elevator trip back up to ground level was a quiet one as Waylon didn't seem to be aware of his surroundings again as he was last time, and just remain slumped in the corner of the lift, running his hands over his face and muttering, "I'm one of them. . ." over and over to himself. A faint ding was heard as the elevator's door slid open and they stepped into what can only be described with a single word.

Massacre.

Blood stained the walls, floor tiles, and even the ceiling. Dead slumped over bodies of security guards at their desks appeared to be either dead by strangulation or even stabbing. Hell, some of the corpses didn't even have heads! The lobby's walls were riddled with what looked like bullet holes and the shell casings on the ground confirmed that fact. As Ella and Waylon made their way to the door's exit, they saw an old man in a priest outfit was wandering the lobby. Ella thought walking over to the man to see if he needed help when she heard a commotion upstairs and heard someone on the upper floors yell out.

"Little pig!"

Then Ella eyes went wide as she saw a gargantuan of a man had picked up a smaller man and threw him through the upper floor's windows. The man in question crashed down to the lobby floor right in front of the old priest and suddenly the old man peered down at him, a faint smile on his withered face, "And who are you, then?"

The man was apparently in too much pain as he didn't answer and he blacked out for a second before opening his eyes to stare at the priest. Ella moved closer to them to hear what the elder man was saying as he looked up to the ceiling.

"I. . .I see. Merciful God, you have sent me an apostle. Guard your life, son, you have a calling."

Then he walked away, leaving the man on the ground. Ella rushed over to him, she knelt down to him. The man looked about Waylon's age, maybe a few years younger. He had long brown hair, combed to one side with the sides of his hair short and sharp brown eyes. He was dressed in a brown work jacket unzipped to reveal a white dress shirt tucked into his blue jeans and a black belt.

"Hey, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

**X X X**

Miles' head hurt like it had been run over by a train. He had broken glass in his hair and probably a cracked rib or two from being throw by that huge variant. He was barely able to remain in conciseness while this weird old guy in a homemade priest outfit was looking down at her, spouting things about how Miles was his apostle for his "God" and telling him to keep safe as he had a "calling". And then he was gone and where he stood was now replaced with a woman in what looked like a prisoner's clothes. Her face was written in worry as she looked down at him.

"Hey, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

"I'm fantastic, buddy.", Miles grumbled as he got on his feet as he shook the glass shards from his hair and clothes, "Now who the hell are you two?"

"I'm Ella Ross", she glanced over to her friend, "And that is Waylon Park."

She studied him, eyes narrowed, "And you?"

"I'm Miles. Miles Upshur."


	8. Broken Men And Dead Television

Well, Miles was down in the lobby, albeit not that way he wanted to get down here. He just had to get out of here, certainly, he had enough footage to expose Murkoff now. But getting out would be easier said than done. His head and ribs hurt like hell, but he had been put through worse pain than this, so he would survive. He turned to face his new companions.

"Either of you know how to get to a room called Security Control?"

"Um. . .", Ella frowned, racking her brain to remember where she had seen that door, then it clicked, "I know. Follow me!"

Miles chased after Ella, who was **((as always))** carrying Waylon, as she ran across the lobby and down a hallway branching off into the asylum. The three stopped in front of a door to the room labeled in big black letters.

**Security Control**

Miles' hand went to the doorknob and he twisted it and pulled. The door wouldn't budge, so he tried again and pushed the door open. Once again, it wouldn't budge. Miles cursed in anger and annoyance.

"Son of a-! Great, we need a key. . ."

"Well then, we better get looking for one then."

_**X X X**_

Miles searched around for the key in the various adjacent rooms, trying all the while not to gag at the smell. The smell of death and dead bodies was nearly overpowering in every room he searched in. Every room had varying degrees of gore in them.

One room looked like a small living room or rec center. There were four seemingly docile variants, watching the television, which was just playing static. Miles' lifted up his camcorder

"This is Miles Upshur, audio log number three."

**"A crowd of broken men watching a dead channel. They look like patients. They survived whatever happened here but nobody's home."**

He put away the camera and left the room. After searching through a couple more rooms, Miles' finally got a lucky break when he entered room A114 and found the key on a dead security officer who had somehow managed to wedge himself under a desk.

Miles frowned and sighed, as getting really tired of all the death, "Can't wait to see the hell outta here. . ."

The reporter grabbed the key and made his way back to the hallway where Ella and Waylon were waiting. The woman appeared to be trying to calm down her friend. Miles gave her a confused, yet concerned look.

"What is wrong with him anyway?"

Ella looked down, "He was changed by the engine. I couldn't save him."

Miles put a hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry about your friend."

"Me too. . ."

The two went silent as they made their way down the hallway and back to the security control room. Miles unlocked the door and pulled it open. They walked into the small room. It was about the size of a large closest and the ceiling, walls, and floors were all made of cold concrete. There was a long wooden desk in the corner. A three metal lockers were bolted to the adjacent wall to the middle of the room was a single chair, facing multiple camera monitors, which showed various areas in the asylum. Ella sat in the chair and started to type in codes to unlock the doors, she was just about to press the button to unlock the main doors. Then she saw that priest, whose name was Father Martin as Miles found out earlier, appear on one of the monitors. Martin smiled up at the camera, his hand on a lever of some kind. . .

. . .And everything went black.

_**X X X**_

As soon as it went dark, the room was flooded by a red light and Miles' blood went cold and his heart stopped as he heard something on the hall.

Chains.

"Fuck, Walker's coming. . ."

Chris Walker was the big variant who threw Miles down into the lobby and Miles was pretty sure he had been the one to stick that tactical cop in the library and was the one responsible for all those severed heads too. Walker made his way down the hallway to the security room, his raspy, deep breathing grew louder as he muttered angrily.

"You were here, weren't you? Little Pig. I'll find all you whores."

Miles knew that they only had seconds to hide before Walker rammed the door down and slaughtered them all like the "little pigs" they were. He frantically scanned the room and his gaze landed on the lockers, he looked at the other two and motioned for them to get into the lockers.

"Get in there. **Now!**"

Ella grabbed Waylon and shoved him into the locker and squeezed in next to him, "Keep quiet, Waylon. Please."

Miles barely got into his locker before Chris started ramming the door and it came down with a crash, falling to the concrete floor. The chains on his wrists and ankles made quiet jingling noises as he walked around the room slowly, his walk halted to stop and stared right where Miles was hiding, not ten feet away.

"You're close, aren't, you?"

His loud footsteps and the jingling chains grew in sound on the concrete as he got closer to Miles' hiding spot. He stopped in front of it. He was so close, Miles could see the deranged brute's scarred and deformed face. Miles closed his eyes, and waited for Walker to rip open the locker's door and tear his head from his body. . .

. . .But it didn't happen.

Instead, he stared at the locker for a couple more seconds before he went over and checked the locker between the Miles and where Waylon and Ella were hiding. Walker opened the locker and grumbled, seeming to be annoyed he didn't find anyone.

Miles let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as Walker left the room, waiting until the jingling chains grew quieter then completely silent. He got out of the locker and turned to face his companions.

"Okay, now let's get the hell out of here."


	9. The Unbelievers

Miles was really getting tired of all this searching and bullshit. FIrst, he had to find the key to the security room and now thanks to Father Martin, he and his new companions had to figure out how to get the power back on to open the asylum's front door so they could escape this nightmarish hospital.

Luckily Ella knew a lot about Mount Massive's workings and areas so she quickly figured out they had to go downstairs through the basement and find the generator downstairs. Miles stopped Ella as she started to pick Waylon up.

"No, you guys just wait up here in case something goes bad when and if I get the power back on. At least then someone will escape this hellhole."

Ella was worried for Miles, despite knowing him for an hour or so now so she stopped him and voiced her concern, "Okay, just be careful, Miles."

Miles grinned, "Who me? Careful? Never."

Miles made his way down the stairs, which were slick with blood and water. He stepped down into the basement and he felt the cold water that had pooled in the basement. He sighed in annoyance, "Nice. First I get a broken rib or two, a pounding headache, and now ruined wet shoes? This is turning out to be a great investigation. . ."

Miles saw the basement's wall was a decayed and crumbling so that a sizable gap was made between the basement rooms. Miles squeezed through the gap and found himself in a large flooded room, several smaller rooms, accessible by a set of small wooden stairs, branched off at each corner of the room.

In the middle of the flooded basement room was a small porch-like structure which housed a small lever, Miles figured that was what could jump-start the asylum's power, so he dashed up the steps to it and pulled the lever down.

Nothing happened.

Miles cursed softly as he tried it again.

Once again nothing happened.

Milles frowned as he realized he would have to find the pumps to restore the lever's operationality. He was just about to go into the other room when he heard a noise and stopped dead in his tracks.

Water sloshing.

Someone else was down here. Miles didn't move for a couple of minutes then he saw another patient, in his hand, was a club or wooden pole of some sort. He stopped in the doorway to the next room, Miles heard him mutter as his white dead eyes scanned the darkness of the basement. He shooked his head as though he was clearing his thoughts.

"Just another ghost. . .Just another ghost. . ."

The man retreated back into the room and Miles took his chance, making a break for the other room. He slammed the door shut behind him and he made his way through the short hallway and into a small room, he saw a valve of some sort and walked up to it.

"Maybe this could help with that lever?", Miles thought as he started to turn the valve. He heard a **woosh! **sound and assumed it had worked so he was about to leave and was making his way down the hallway when he saw that inmate in the doorway and who was now making the way down the hallway. Miles swore as he pressed himself into a darkened corner, silently praying that the madman wouldn't notice him.

Miles held his breath as the variant passed by. The man was so close, Miles could see him frown in confusion and annoyance as he stopped in the other doorway to the valve. The man muttered to himself, "There was no putty tat in there" before walking back out into the flooded basement's main room.

Miles left the corner and made his way across to the other room, which was identical to the other valve room. He again found the valve and turned it, hearing the same **woosh! **sound as before. Miles quickly dashed out of the room and down the hallway back into the main area before the variant could find him. He made his way back up the stairsteps to the lever and yanked it down.

Suddenly the basement was fully lit up and Miles dashed back up the stairs before the crazed inmate could find him in the light. As he got back up to ground level, he saw Ella sitting where he had left her and jogged over to her.

"Hey, powers back on. Let's go."

_**X X X**_

The three companions made their way back through to the security room. They had to pass by a variant in a wheelchair. They passed him before when Miles had looked for the key to Security Control and he didn't make a sound.

This time though, he made more than a sound as he lunged at Miles, knocking him to the ground, screaming in the investigative reporter's face.

**"Get them out! Please, the doctor is dead! Rip them clean! You have to help me!"**

Miles shoved the crazed man off of him, as the man crawled away and cowered behind his wheelchair. Miles ignored him and kept walking as though nothing had happened. They made it back to the door of the Security Control, well where the door would be if Walker hadn't bashed it in earlier while searching for them. Miles went over to the monitors and started to get the front doors open when he heard Ella yell out in surprise and pain.

He turned and saw that Father Martin had stabbed her with a syringe full of something sinister-looking. He subdued Waylon too and was making his way over to the other man. Miles reacted quickly and tried to shove him away, but Martin was strong for an old man as he easily overpowered Miles and stabbed in the neck with the syringe. As Miles felt his senses start to dull and his knees buckled, Martin caught him and whispered to him.

"I'm sorry, my son, I didn't want to have to do this to you. But you can't leave, not yet. There is so much yet for you to witness."

He turned to the monitors and Miles saw what looked like a group of S.W.A.T members or something walking around the asylum, guns raised. Suddenly one of the tactical cops was picked up by an unseen force and thrown across the large room like a ragdoll. The rest became scared quickly as they shot out at the invisible assailant. Martin gave him a ghostly smile as he whispered to him again.

"Will you see it? Can you?"

Miles grunted as he felt himself fading, "See. . .See what?"

Our Lord, the Walrider tearing His truth into the unbelievers."

The Walrider grew violent as it started to tear into the cops, killing each on in brutal ways. One tried to escape but was pulled back into the room. The cop fired off shots in a panic as he was dragged to his demise. Martin was still holding up Miles as he felt the drug in his system take over and everything faded to black as he slipped into unconsciousness.


	10. Unfortunate Acquaintances

Miles woke up to screaming.

The drugs in his system fading as he regained consciousness in a small room. It looked like a padded cell of some sort, possibly used for Mount Massive's most unpredictable patients. The padded cell had a small cot in the corner and was the size of a small bathroom. As he looked around, Miles noticed something disturbing. The cell's padded walls are covered in crosses that appeared to be drawn with blood. Literally everywhere in the cell, crosses were painted in all sizes. In the middle of it all, written in blood were the words:

**"Rest in peace."**

Miles pulled out his camcorder, slightly surprised Martin didn't take it and filmed the bloodied wall's writings.

**"This is Miles Upshur, audio log number. . .four? Five? I'm losing track already. . ."**

**"The priest, Father Martin, brought me here to show me something. Thinks I'm going to be a witness for whatever batshit crazy he's trying to sell me. This DR. WERNICKE is at the center of whatever went wrong here. But he died more than ten years ago. 'Rest in Peace,' says the blood on the wall."**

Miles quickly put the camcorder away as he heard someone outside his cell door. He peered out the small window and saw a variant staring back at him, his dead white eyes seeming to glow in the darkened prison block. The inmate opened his cell's door and wandered off as Miles stepped out onto a walkway suspended above the rest of the prison down below.

Well now he was out and one question remained.

Where the hell was Ella and Waylon?

He walked along the concrete floor, feeling the walls with his hands as to not trip and injure himself. Miles made his way over to a locked gate, seeing two people standing behind it. He couldn't see them very well because of the darkness, but maybe it was Ella and Waylon. He rushed over to the figures, then stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the two people standing there.

And they weren't Ella and Waylon.

The two people looked like middle-aged men, pale skinned and muscular. But the men's facial features were repulsive. One had a lump-shaped head, crooked teeth and an underbite, no hair on the top of his head except for a slightly receding on the sides of his head. The other twin was a bit better looking, but not by much. He had a full head of black messy hair and a stern face. The most distinguishing thing about the twins was their lack of clothing, they were completely naked, covered in blood, dirt, and scars. The twins studied Miles, a hungry look in their dead eyes.

The taller twin spoke, his voice calm and soft, "Who's this?"

His brother replied in the same monotone voice, "Maybe Father Martin's man."

"Maybe."

"He looks nervous."

The tall twin said the next thing with such calmness, Miles swore he could have been talking about the weather or something equally unexciting, "I would like to kill him."

The other nodded in agreement, "As would I."

Then the taller one shook his head in disappointment, "The preacher asked us not to."

"It would be impolite."

"Not here."

The shorter one looked at his brother, "We give him a running start?"

His twin gave a small smile, "There's an idea."

He turned back to look Miles in the eyes, "And when we kill him. . ."

Miles' heart was pounding in his chest as the twins spoke in unison, their voices never rising above a whisper.

". . .we kill him slow."

The older twin spoke again by himself, "Such patience."

His twin looked hungrily at Miles, and whispered, "I want his tongue and liver."

"They are yours."

There were a set of stairs leading down to the lower floor of the prison, Miles quickly made his way down them, eager to get as far away from the cannibal brothers as fast as his legs could carry him. He saw several other variants wandering around the prison. One was just walking back and forth, slamming his head into different spots on the walls, every once and a while he would stop, grabbing his injured head and scream.

"They're in my blood and they want to get out!"

Miles ignored the man and peered into each cell, looking to see if his friends-

"Wait what? Friends?", Miles thought, "What am I talking about? These guys **aren't **my friends. I barely know them. Not friends, just. . .unfortunate acquaintances."

**Correction then. **

Miles ignored the man and peered into each cell, looking to see if his **unfortunate acquaintances **were in one of them. He turned on the camcorder's night vision, bathing whatever he saw in a bright green tint. It took a little while, but Miles was able to make his way over to the other side of the prison block's upper floor which were inaccessible on the other part of the upper floor due to all the rubble and other debris caving in the other side. The other side of the prison block appeared identical to the other one, except there were inmates in these cells. They saw Miles, one of the deranged men called out to him.

"Nurse! Nurse! I'm going to need some help getting clean", the man gave Miles a sick grin, "Nurse. . ."

Miles ignored the cackling man and kept going passing other inmates who remained quiet, huddled in the corner of their cells, quietly whimpering as he passed. Miles stopped when he heard another inmate whisper to him.

"Don't trust them. They'll tell you it's science but it's not. They were waiting for us. In this place. Billy understood. They've always been here. Always. . ."

Miles kneeled down in front of him, "What? What do you mean? Who is Billy?"

The inmate didn't say anything more and cowered in the corner as Miles came closer, seeming to want to sink into the wall forever just to escape Miles. The reporter sighed, realizing he would be unable to get anymore information out of him and instead walked away. There was one more cell, Miles quickened his pace.

This had to be where Martin put Ella and Waylon, **it had to be**. If not, well Miles didn't know what would have happened to them. As the interior of the cell came into view, he saw two people huddled in the corner like the others. They were dressed in prisoner clothing, and one appeared to be a woman. Miles' heart leaped out of his chest and he whispered.

"E-Ella?"

Ella turned at the sound of Miles' voice, her eyes went wide as she got and rushed to the bars, "Miles! You're alive! Thank God."

Miles gave her a grin, "Don't thank God, thank my amazing survival skills."

Despite the fear coursing through her veins, Ella smiled slightly, "Ha Ha. Anyway, we need to get out of here and back up to the Administration Block and the lobby."

Miles nodded, "Grab Waylon, and let's see if we can find a way out of here."

Ella's smile grew as she walked back into the cell, grabbing Waylon and carrying him out, "Then Bam! We're home free!"

Homefree?

Not likely.


	11. The Doctor Will See You Now

Miles scouted ahead, trying to find a way out of the Prison Block and after evading a couple of hostile variants he wasn't able to figure out a way out and instead headed back to where Ella and Waylon were. When he came back, Ella looked up at her friend.

"Did you find a way out?"

Miles shook his head, "Nope. But you used to work here, right?"

"Uh, yes. Waylon and I both did before. . ." Ella looked down and didn't continue, she didn't really want to remember the horrors leading up to this whole mess.

"So you know your way around here? More or less anyway?"

Ella nodded, "More or less."

"So is there anywhere where we could go that could lead out of this place or get us some outside help?"

Ella frowned as she tried to think, "Um. . .", then her eyes lit up as she smiled, 'Oh! There's a short-wave radio somewhere around here. I heard a couple of guards talking about it before Waylon and I found you. Maybe we could use it to call for help!"

Miles gave his friend a big grin, "Well you got everything figured out, don't you?"

So the trio wandered through the prison block until they found something Miles had apparently missed while searching for an exit: a window just a few feet above their heads. Maybe it led outside, maybe they could finally escape this nightmare.

"Yea, and maybe Waylon would suddenly regain his sanity", thought Miles as he reached up to the windowsill and pulled himself up and out the window.

He fell several feet and landed with a thud in the grass below, it was pitch dark and foggy outside, with only a few lampposts scattered around the asylum's exterior, which resembled a park with a large fountain in the middle and cobblestone paths twisting around. Miles got up, brushing his jeans off and heard Ella call from the window.

"Get ready!"

"Ready for what?", questioned Miles.

Waylon was the answer as he fell from the window and Miles nearly didn't have enough time to react, but he lunged forward and caught him, holding the man bridal style. Ella hoisted herself up and fell next to the two men, smiling at them.

"Hey, guys. Did you have a nice fall, Waylon?"

Miles glared at her, but he was smiling, "Shut up, Ross."

"Make me, Upshur!"

"Hold out your arms then."

Ella frowned, slightly confused, "Why?"

"Trust me."

Ella scoffed, she would sooner try to hug Chris Walker than put her trust in Miles, but held out her arms anyway. Miles turned to her and set Waylon down in her outstretched arms, smiling as she glared at him.

"Miles Upshur. I **hate **you."

"No, you don't."

Miles turned and walked away, leaving Ella and Waylon. She jogged to keep up with him as the two filmed their surroundings, activating the night vision function to see more than a foot in front of them. Ella saw the large fountain and saw there was water in it. She rushed over with Miles, thinking how nice it would be to get a drink after all this time. She stopped though as they got closer to the fountain and saw there wasn't any water in it.

There was blood. The fountain was filled to the brim with the dark crimson liquid. Miles went pale as he filmed it closer and spoke to the camera.

**"This. . .This is Miles Upshur, audio log number five, six."**

**"So much blood in the water I can smell it. Like putting a penny in your mouth when you were a kid. The whispers are making more sense, I'm looking for static. It's like an itch."**

Miles went ahead of Ella and kept walking. Ella rushed up to meet his pace, still lugging Waylon along like he was a suitcase.

Or a body bag.

Ella's eyes scanned through the darkness as she looked around for the entrance to the guard's tower. Miles, Ella, and Waylon wandered around the darkened courtyard and almost thought about giving up when Miles came across a locked chain door where an inmate playing basketball.

With a severed head.

Miles ignored the inmate and climbed the chainlink fencing and landed on the opposite side of the basketball court. The inmate playing ignored him likewise and kept playing. Ella helped Waylon over the fencing and climbed over herself. Ella saw what looked like the guard towers in the distance, she pointed and Miles followed her gaze.

"There. That's where we need to go."

_**X X X**_

It took a long time to reach the towers and with having to stop and help Waylon across a pit or make a jump, they were making progress, albeit slowly, but progress nonetheless. A ladder lead upward to the tower's walkway and that walkway led into another part of Mount Massive, possibly a part of the prison where they could access in the Prison Block and Miles climbed up it, followed by Ella with Waylon on her back. Miles kept going up and made his way to the tower's walkway, Ella was beside him in a matter of seconds and waited to see what he would do.

Miles made up his mind and kept walking, across the catwalk and into the adjacent building. It was a small building with only a couple rooms along the corridors of the building. Ella set Waylon down against a wall before going to search one room while Miles scouted the other one. Ella's room was about the size of a small bathroom and it looked like the rest of the asylum: like a tornado torn through it. She held up her own camcorder and used the night vision to navigate the darkened room, but stopped when she saw a variant in the corner of the room. He must have sensed her, cause he growled.

Not in anger or fear, but a mixture of both.

"Who's. . Who's there. . .? Who's there?! I'll hurt you. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm not afraid of anything. Not anymore."

Ella should have just ignored the man and left the room, but before her better judgment could take over, she found herself in front of the inmate. He was in a straightjacket and had his eyes covered with a strip of cloth, he flinched inwardly when he felt Ella's presence near. She kneeled down in front of him and he groaned and moaned in fear and discomfort

"S-Stay away! I'll kill you! I-I will!.", the man growled, although the fear in his voice betrayed him as he pressed himself more into the corner.

Ella reached up and brushed her fingers against the cloth blindfold and carefully took it off the inmate, his eyes were a light green rather than the dead white of the other variants. Fear was deep in his eyes but faded away as the man realized who was in front of him. He looked down, as he muttered to her, his voice lacking any emotion.

"I can tell we're the same. You still know what's real. The. . .doctor's dead, you know that, right? Doctor Wernicke. Died before he even started working here. What kind of experiments does a dead doctor perform on living patients? That's the question."

"What do you mean? Who is Wernicke?"

"You have to find Wernicke. Only way."

"I don't understand. . ."

The man pressed his head into his knees and his voice laced with sadness, "Murkoff took so much from us. Used us. Turned us into these things because nobody cares about a few forgotten lunatics." Tears dripped down his face as he looked up at Ella one last time.

Ella reached out and touched the man's cheek and he didn't flinch, "I'm so sorry. . ."

The inmate's expression turned solemn as he whispered to Ella, "We have faith in all the wrong things. And it will destroy us."

Ella waited for him to say more, but the man tucked his head back into his knees and started to sob softly, so Ella stood up and left the room, running into Miles who gave her his trademark grin, "Hey, Ross.", then saw his friend's face was the color of paper and frowned, "You alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Ella nodded, "Yea, something like that. Did you find the radio yet?"

"In fact, I did. It's over here. Come on."

Ella picked up Waylon again and the trio set off down the corridor and Miles opened the door to the room. Ella nearly screamed out in happiness when she saw the shortwave radio was still in the room, completely operational. Ella set Waylon down in the corner before Miles rushed over to the radio, not breaking stride as he picked up the handheld radio and dialed the police. A man's voice crackled over the airwaves.

"Hello? Leadville Police Station? What's your emergency?"

Miles was about to speak when he heard Ella grunted in pain and then pain exploded in his lower back as a hard wooden pole struck it. He grunted in pain as well as he fell to the ground. Waylon started whimpering in fear, whispering about the woman Lisa again. Ella had fallen to her knees and spit up blood as she had been struck in the back of her head, causing her vision swam as she watched the crimson liquid stain the already dirty floor. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw the one man who put her and Waylon in this nightmare in the first place.

Jeremy Blaire.

He had two other security guards around him, all had pistols and hard hickory batons. His icy blue eyes were full of evil glee as he smiled down at his former colleague, Jeremy cupped her face in her hands, "Congratulations, Ms. Ross. You ruined. **Everything.**

Then before Ella even knew what had happened Blaire shoved her violently to the dirty floor. He kicked her in the head with all the strength he could muster. She fought to stay awake as she heard Jeremy speaking to his goons.

"What do you think we should do with these guys?" asked a blonde guard

"Leave Ella and Waylon here, I hear that brute Walker coming, he'll take care of them soon enough."

"What about that one?" asked the other guard, pointing at Miles' barely conscious body.

"Ah, our little reporter? Mr. Usphur?"

"Yes, sir."

Ella felt it harder and harder to stay awake, but soon gave up, but not before hearing Blaire's last words before the world went dark.

"Take him to meet the good doctor."


	12. Should Have Cut His Feet First

"I'm **really **tired of being knocked out and waking up in random fucking places. . ."

That was Miles' first thought as he woke up, but found out he couldn't move his legs or arms. He looked around, his vision blurred as he saw a man in front of him. He blinked and his vision went back to normal. He looked up at the man and bit back a curse.

The man looked like a cross between an unwrapped mummy and a zombie doctor, dressed in surgeon's smock and a ripped-up surgical mask. Covering his eyes was what looked like steampunk monocles. He gave Miles a big smile, though it held nothing but scorn.

"Hey, you're that little shit priest's guy aren't you? His. . .witness or whatever. You must be exhausted. Let's take a break, huh, buddy? The old two-martini lunch, have a little confab. Blah, blah, blah, blah. . . Ya know where are my manners! I am Doctor Trager, but you can call me Rick, buddy."

Even though the man's tone was friendly, Miles knew better as he sensed an underlying cruelness in this 'doctor" Trager."

Trager strapped Miles' hands and legs tighter as he chuckled, "You know, you're a little heavier than you look. A little cardio wouldn't kill you. Okay. Here we go. Arms and legs inside the car at all times."

Trager wheeled Miles through several hallways and corridors until they ended up in front of the elevator. Beyond that was a door. Better yet, it was an exit. If Miles could get free. . .he could be able to escape. he could be free.

Trager must have sensed his eagerness to escape, because he took a deep breath and said, "I love the mountain air up here at night. You want to head out, take a stroll? Go ahead, I'll wait here."

Miles could tell he was just playing a cruel joke on him, but he tried and strained against his bonds, but the clamps held fast so he was stuck in this damned chair.

Trager couldn't contain the cruel glee in his voice as he stretched out a hand to the exit, "Go on, run free. I'm in no hurry. No? Alright. Nose to the grindstone. I like that. Okay, then. Right this way."

"No! So close to freedom! Why?!"

_**X X X **_

After Trager had wheeled Miles into the elevator and pressed a button the control panel, the doors slid closed and went up a couple of floors. The lift dinged and the doors slid back open and Trager wheeled Miles out into the hallway, passing bodies of what could be Trager's other victims, all missing various body parts.

One was screaming in pain and Trager quietly shushed him, saying, "Shhh, shh. You weren't putting that tongue to any use anyway."

Then he turned his gaze to Miles and muttered, "Truth be told, I was just tired of licking my own stamps."

Trager wheels his latest victim farther down the hallway before stopping in front of a room, he opened the door and wheeled Miles in a gore-filled and dirty bathroom, several sharp tools on a rolling table in the corner. Trager left Milles in the center of the dirty bathroom.

"Thanks so much for coming by. We'll begin your consultation in a moment, I'll just need a second to wash up and. . ." but stopped his statement when he saw the camcorder strapped to Miles' belt, "Oh. . .home movies!. . .And it'll give us a chance to talk."

Trager grabbed it and turned it on, setting on the broken and blood-crusted sink in front of them, then he wheeled the rolling table next to them and picked up a nasty-looking knife, he held it to Miles throat, "You know, I'm a bit worried how much time you've been spending with Father Martin. I know. . ."

Despite having a knife to his jugular, Miles growled, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Trager pressed the knife into Miles' neck, giving him a smile and shrugged, "Nothing, buddy! I just hope you haven't been letting him confuse you with his. . .holier-than-thou bible thumping. No offense to the man, but I sometimes worry he might just be a little bit. . .crazy."

Then Trager took the knife away from Miles' throat and he sighed, "It's understandable, people get scared, they're as like to turn to God as anything else. God died with the gold standard. We're on to more concrete faith now."

The doctor walked away from him, still talking as he searched for a different tool, "You have to rob Paul to pay Peter, there is no other way. Murder in its simplest form, but what happens when all the money is gone?"

Miles didn't answer, instead just continuing to glare at his captor. And with all traces of his previous humor gone, Trager grabbed a pair of large bone shears and put Miles index and ring finger between them, "Well, money becomes a matter of faith. And that's what I'm here for. To make you believe."

Then Trager pressed down on the handles of the shears and they went through Miles' fingers like scissors through cardboard. Miles nearly blacked out from the intense pain, he let a scream of agony as tears streamed down his face. His vision darkened, but Trager struck him across the face hard.

"You paying attention? Don't pass out on me, there's still a lot for you to absorb."

Reluctantly Miles' vision cleared slightly and he stared at the crazed doctor through blurry and teary eyes, full of hate, "You sick. . .You sick motherfucker. . ."

"Eh, I've been called worse, but you're better now, right? Do you understand what we achieved here? We made the consumer into the means of production." Miles felt sick as he saw Trager pocket his missing fingers and smiled, "This thing is going to sell itself!"

Then Trager left the room, and Miles used this as his chance to break free, slipping his injured hand through the clamp, he pulled his other hand free. As soon as he was freed from the chair, he fell to the ground and vomited all over the already dirty floor. Wiping his mouth with his good hand, he got up and grabbed his camera and quickly left the bathroom and found himself in what looked a large operating room, rows of beds lined the walls and some had Trager's "patients" in them, most dead or dying.

Miles passed by a variant, strapped in a bed. Then the man awoke, exclaiming, "Who's there? Is somebody there?"

"Come closer. . .I'm not a patient. I'm an executive, just like him. . .like. . .Trager. But he got the treatment. He's too alive. Filled with Wernicke's nightmares. . .It worked. . .too well. They couldn't control it. And you can't control it! Nobody! Nobody! NOBODY! He'll find you! He'll kill you! He's coming now! **Trager! Trager!"**

Then the man started to scream and thrash in his bed, Miles cursed and tried to shush him, but it was no use as he could hear Trager's footstep getting louder, so he hid under a nearby bed just in time as moments later, Trager appeared in the room and made his way over to the restrained patient. He sighed, tutting his tongue in disappointment.

"Mr. Langin, you can't make a deal if you've got nothing to bargain with."

"Wernicke was here! I saw him again! He was here!"

"Of course he was, Mr. Langin. Was he poking around in your dreams, trying to take your Jello again?"

Mr. Langin growled at his captor, trying to sound angry, but fear crept into his voice, "Kill me! Go ahead, fucker! Go ahead and murder me, and see what happens. You think I'm scared of anything? I've been fucked in the brain by Nazis, you goddamn pansy. What could you do to me? Huh?"

"I see what's happening here. You're bored. You want a little attention. Perfectly understandable. Well, I'm here for you. I'll give you very special attention."

Before Miles could even blink, he filmed as Trager plunged his bone shears through the man's chest, giving one grunt of pain Langin went still. Then Trager left the dead man, seeming to go back into the bathroom where Miles should have been. Miles sighed as the doctor left.

"This is Miles Upshur, audio log. . .oh who cares anymore?"

**"TRAGER. Sick fucker cut my fingers off. Has tortured and mangled dozens of patients, I watch him murder another one, nothing I can do about it. Talks like a white collar business school douchebag, probably has a set of golf clubs in the trunk of his Audi. I'd bet the rest of my fingers he was Murkoff brass before whatever's infected this place changed him.**

**I want out of this place. I want my fucking fingers back. I want to see Trager die."**

Miles crawled out from under the bed and then leaves the room, running as quietly and quickly as he can, to the elevator. He got in the elevator and pressed a button.

Nothing happened. Like always.

Suddenly he heard Trager yell out in anger, followed by a slamming of a door,

"Fuck! Fuck! Really? You're gonna walk on me? If there is one thing I cannot god damned stand, it's a quitter! Come on!"

Miles groaned in annoyance as he saw a key slot of some kind under all the buttons and no key anywhere sight, of course!

"Why does everything need a fucking key?!", he sighed and backtracked back into the room he was in and went through two vents and another long corridor, all the while avoiding Trager who occasionally called out to Miles.

"Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose here, I don't make the rules."

Miles eventually found a room that looked like a small office, with the key to the elevator hanging on the cork board. As soon as he grabbed it, Trager's voice came behind him from the locked door, "Hold up there buddy! I'll be right with you", as he shoved his shears in the door frame to wrench the door open, so Miles bolted just in time to see Trager burst through the door, shears in hand.

Miles didn't look back or stop running as he came face to face with the elevator. He got into, putting the key in the slot, he turned it and the elevator began to go downward. As the elevator made its descent, Trager appeared in the lower floor, opening the gated doors.

He saw Miles and yelled, "I'm not giving up on you yet, buddy!"

He opened the doors and lunged at Miles, his shears open and raised at the reporter's throat. Primal survival instinct kicked in as Miles wrestle against the crazed doctor and shoved him back into the room he came through. Trager tripped and fell so his upper body was still in the lift, then Miles watched in sick glee as Trager was crushed between the elevator and the floor.

Doctor Richard Trager was dead.

Miles took a deep breath and got out his camcorder.

"This is Miles fucking Usphur. Audio log number eight, nine."

**"How To Make Trager Juice**

**Step 1: squeeze."**

Miles slid down in the corner of the lift, laughing a little too hard as he ran his good hand through his hair. If he died or got out of here, it no longer matters to Miles.

Either way, he was free.


	13. The Man Downstairs

Waylon was staring up at the ceiling when he opened his eyes. When he came to, his vision was cloudy and his head hurt like he just spent the last couple of hours slamming it against a brick wall. He groaned softly and rubbed his temple, trying unsuccessfully to relieve some of the pain.

Waylon sat up, only to grab his head in pain again as white-hot pain exploded in his head. He ignored the pain and stood up, seeing someone in the corner, lying facedown. Waylon rushed over to the unmoving person, turning them over gently. It was Ella, his friend, and co-worker. Waylon wondered why she would be here and where **here **exactly was. Waylon couldn't quite remember how they had gotten together, but he knew he had to help her.

He shook her gently, whispering her name, "Ella. . .Ella wake up."

She groaned softly and opened her eyes a bit to look up, but when Ella saw who it was, she sat up and nearly headbutted Waylon. She stared at him, eyes full of uncertainty, "W-Waylon? You're back again?"

He nodded slowly, his head still pounding, "I believe so."

Ella pulled him into a rib-crushing hug, "Thank God! Blaire took Miles!"

Waylon held his friend close as his eyes went wide, he wasn't sure he had heard her right, "Miles? You mean that reporter I sent that email to before. . .all this happened?"

Ella nodded, eyes teary, "They said something about sending him to a doctor."

The blood in Waylon's veins went cold and he felt his heart drop into his stomach as he whispered, "Oh, God. . ."

Ella noticed his reaction and frowned, "What?"

"Blaire just may have well sent that poor man to the electric chair. . ."

Ella was about to ask what Waylon meant, but suddenly the door to the outside building came crashing down as heavy breathing and a familiar jingling of chains sounded.

Chris Walker had arrived.

Ella and Waylon reacted quickly as the door came down, crouching behind a half-smashed desk in the darkened room. Walker's heavy footsteps grew louder as he grunted angrily, like an animal searching for his prey. Waylon's memory of the night's events was a little hazy, but he could definitely remember the countless encounters with Chris Walker and knew if he found them in here, there would be no mercy from the brutal variant.

So as Walker searched the area around them, Waylon and Ella snuck across to the door he came in. When they were a safe distance, they stopped to slow their pounding hearts. Waylon took the time to gather their surroundings and saw that they were trapped in the hallway because the only way in or out was through the security room.

And through Chris Walker.

Waylon sighed and nodded to Ella, who knew they had to go back where they just were. So they snuck back and hid in the shadow as Walker stomped by them, they heard him whisper as he went by.

"You don't have to hide from me, I just want to help. I'll make the pain stop."

Just want to help? As if tearing people's head from their bodies is helpful in any way!

Moments later, Walker was gone, seeming to go search a different part of the security rooms and it's hallways. Waylon knew they better get going and saw their only option of escape: a window. Hopefully, the drop wouldn't be too high and kill them outright.

If only they knew the horror awaiting them, then death would have been preferable.

Waylon went through the window first and landed outside on a toolshed of some kind. Then a small thud signaled Ella had dropped down next to him. Waylon got down from the roof of the toolshed and down to the ground, Ella follows suit and noticed as the two were near another one of the courtyards of Mount Massive, Ella takes the lead towards a lit building in the distance, side-stepping into an underground water drain.

The two walked through a series of pipe-ways. It took a while, but soon they were stuck once more with an obstacle: an electric fence had blocked off the pipe-ways path and it was on and crackling with electricity. So they backtracked through the courtyard, finding the building which should have been where the power was stored. As they got closer, Ella and Waylon suddenly heard a loud scream mixed with pain and fear.

Waylon sighed and turned to Ella, "Wait here. If I'm not back in 10 minutes, find me. Okay?"

Ella nodded, "Got it. Be safe."

Waylon smiled and nodded, "Well do.", and left inside the building. He took Ella's camcorder and used it's night vision to illuminate the building as Waylon searched around inside. He stopped at a door and tried to push it open. He sighed, seeing the lock was somehow jammed on it. He looked back up at the little window in the door and nearly screamed, but Waylon stopped it and jumped back from the window.

Someone was staring right back at him from the other side with a big eerie grin.

"Darling! Did I frighten you? I'm awfully sorry, I didn't mean to."


	14. Seems Like A Dream

The man in the window smiled at Waylon, seeming to study the new face before him. Waylon did the same, studying the man's features. He had a pale almost sickly-looking complexion and the side of his face was scarred and blistered. The man's hair was jet black, slicked back, an undercutting hairstyle and he had dull blue eyes which appeared to have hemorrhaged, causing them to become blood-filled and red and a wide smile. Waylon's eyes widen as he realized the man he was staring at.

The man that those bastards working for Murkoff put into one of those machines.

The man who thought Waylon could save him. Who could stop all of this.

Edward "Eddie" Gluskin.

Eddie was clothed, unlike the last time the two men had been each other. He was wearing old-timey gentleman clothing crudely sewn together into a dirty dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a dark blue bow tie and matching waistcoat, work boots, and cargo pants.

He gave Waylon a wide smile as he spoke, "We've met before, haven't we? I know I've seen your face."

"I. . I. . .", Waylon faltered, didn't say anything, too scared to speak.

Eddie's smile went away as his face scrunched up in confusion, "Maybe. . .Just before I woke up."

Then Gluskin disappeared down the hallway, leaving Waylon alone on the opposite side of the locked door. Moments later, the Groom reappeared again, across the room in a doorway. Waylon quickly hid behind some tables in the room as the sound of Gluskin's boots came closer.

Eddie's voice seemed so close as he called out, in a dreamy voice, "Though it seems like a dream now, being here with you."

At that moment, unfortunately, Ella decided to walk in, eyes squinted against the darkness of the room. She saw the figure of Eddie and assumed it was Waylon, so she walked over to him, calling his name quietly, "Waylon? Is that you?"

No. No, that's not Waylon.

Eddie turned around and the two looked at each other. Ella couldn't believe her eyes. It was Eddie. Her patient before all this madness took hold. Eddie's charismatic and cheerful smile faded and was replaced with a frown of confusion as his broken mind worked overtime to try and remember where he knew this person.

"I know you. I remember. . .chains. Men in security outfits. And. . .", The Groom's eyes went wide, "And you in the middle of it all, ignoring my cries for help. You are Ella. . ."

"Eddie! I'm sorry I couldn't help. I would have, but I couldn't risk-"

Eddie's voice snapped like a whip to cut her off, but his words were a mixture of anger and sadness, "You couldn't risk helping me, the crazed Eddie Gluskin because you were a scared little whore who used me."

Eddie, please-"

"No! You aren't the woman I loved. Not anymore. You aren't worth my attention anymore."

Then Eddie bent down, peering under the table where Waylon was hiding, he gave the terrified younger man a smile and hauled him from under the table. He held Waylon by his arm and gestured to him, showing Ella.

"But **he **is. "


	15. Love Isn't For Everybody

"Wait, what?"

"He. Is. Perfect. At least, he will be. Soon, my love.", Eddie smiled and stroked Waylon's cheek lovingly, "Soon, you will be the woman I need and I can be the father mine never was."

"Eddie, please. Leave Waylon alone!"

Suddenly Eddie's whole demeanor changed, his face morphed into a mask of anger, "And you won't leave me alone like that whore, will you?"

Waylon shook his head frantically, anything to get the delusional groom's grip to loosen. It worked and Eddie let go of the arm of his "bride". Waylon must have seen a chance because he shoved Eddie as hard as he could, causing the Groom to fall to the dirty floor.

"Run!" Waylon yelled, grabbing Ella's hand and pulling her along as they ran as fast as they could down the darkened hospital's maze of corridors. They ran through and twisted through different hallways until they couldn't hear Gluskin's voice, which switched between angry curses and almost seductive promises of love. Waylon took a couple of shaky breath and ended up coughing. When his coughing fit was over, he looked over at Ella, who had a look of concern on her face, and nodded.

'I'm okay, just not the runner I used to be."

Ella nodded back, "Just don't push yourself too much."

They continued to walk fast down one of the hallways, keep an eye around for Eddie. They entered a large, dark room with several old sewing machines on tables. Behind a lit curtain lies a brutal scene of bodies and human remains placed and tied up to imitate the moment of childbirth. Ella turned green slightly and looked away. A radio in the corner of the room was softly playing I Want A Girl by Harry Von Tilzer and William Dillon.

Suddenly Eddie enters at the far end of the room and smiled brightly when he saw Waylon, "There you are! You don't have to run away from me. I only want to love you."

Waylon, still holding Ella protectively, kept backing up slowly towards one of the three adjacent smaller rooms nearby. One of them had to have an exit if there wasn't then Ella and Waylon would be doomed. When he saw Eddie was far enough away, they ran again down one of the rooms, which luckily, had led down to another hallway. The two had kept walking quickly as they heard Eddie close behind, singing the song they heard on the radio.

"When I was a boy my mother often said to me, get married, son and see how happy you will be. I have looked all over, but no girlie can I find, who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind. I will have to look around until the right one I have found. Hehe."

They kept on going, despite the dull pain in their legs and soon saw the only way ahead was an elevator. There was one problem though.

There was no elevator.

Then, like a miracle from God, Ella saw an old elevator service ladder bolted to the far wall. It could take them to the other floor below. Ella gestured Waylon's gaze towards it.

"We can use that to get over. We'd better hurry though."

Waylon nodded, "Okay, you go first. Then I'll follow."

Ella nodded back and took a good ten steps back before she ran at the chasm and jumped, hands reaching out she grabbed the last rung of the ladder and carefully lowered herself to the floor below. When she was down and on solid ground, she gave Waylon a thumbs up, signaling he was good to go. So Waylon took some steps back and leaped at the ladder, grabbing a rung. He was about to lower himself down to the floor when they both heard a sound that made their hearts drop. The ladder broke and Waylon is sent crashing to the roof of the elevator car below. The fall impales a large piece of the wooden elevator roof into Waylon's ankle causing the young man to cry out in pain.

Eddie appeared on the floor above, looking down at Waylon with a look of concern, "Oh god. Oh god, are you okay? Tell me you're okay."

"Leave us alone!", Ella cried out

The Groom ignored her and continued speaking to Waylon, "I hate to think of you suffering without me. Why would you do something like that to yourself? You'd rather... Rather die than be with me?" Eddie's face turned hard and serious", "Then die."

Eddie presses a button and walked away as the elevator started to go upward to crush Waylon against the ceiling. Waylon painfully yanks the jagged spike of wood out of his ankle and starts to crawl towards where Ella is, her arms outstretched to grab Waylon. He barely makes it in time as she pulls him from the roof of the elevator as it closes the space between them. Waylon's leg is bleeding badly and as he tries to walk, he ends up staggering and falls to the floor, gasping in pain.

"Waylon! Are you okay?"

Waylon grunts softly in pain and speaks through gritted teeth, "M-My. . .leg."

Ella looks at his injured leg, worry written on her face, as she takes her arm out of her sleeve and pulls hard, tearing the arm from her jumpsuit. She wrapped his leg up with the torn fabric, making a crude makeshift bandage, which would hopefully stop any more blood loss. Waylon stood up, shakily and he nodded his thanks and they walked on, Waylon limping slightly. They go through rooms where severed heads of Variants have been speared onto female mannequins clothed in wedding dresses, that damned song playing ever-so-softly in the background. Waylon then points to the ground, seeing the bloodied bootprints of someone.

"Look, footprints. Maybe a way out."

The two former co-workers picked the up pace slightly and followed the blood-soak footprints to a room with a couple of lockers, a small desk in the corner and. . .

. . A dead end.

And the worst part?

The Groom was right behind them, blocking their way. Ella and Waylon squeezed into one locker before he saw them and now were silently praying Gluskin wouldn't find them. Eddie's footsteps came closer, then Ella nearly let out a yelp of fear when Eddie's face appeared right in front of their locker. His smile was as pristine and wide as the day she first met him.

"You make yourself a gift for me. A delicacy to be unwrapped and unwrapped again. And savored."

Eddie placed his hand against the locker door, "Here we go and-", he shoved the locker over and it fell to the floor, knocking the wind out of the two trapped inside. He began to drag it away, speaking to Waylon.

"I've been a little. . .vulgar. I know. And I want to say, I'm sorry. I just. . .you know how a man gets when he wants to know a woman. But after the ceremony, when I've made an honest woman of you. . .I promise I'll be a different man."

After a few more minutes of being dragged, they entered a small room that looked like a cross between a crude workshop and an operating room. Then the Groom lifted the locker upright and put a tube between the silted window of the locker.

"You'll have to wait here. I know you must be just as eager as I am to consummate our love. But try to enjoy the anticipation. Here, darling. This will help you relax."

Gas poured in and Waylon and Ella desperately tried to not breathe in the fumes, but it didn't work as the gas flooded their systems and they felt themselves slowly falling unconscious.

The last thing they saw was Eddie's smiling face before the world shut off.


	16. The Thing In The Dark

_**This chapter is gonna switch between Miles and Waylon. This might be a bit confusing, so I put their names before the switch.**_

_**Hope you guys enjoy nonetheless.**_

**X X X**

**Miles**

Miles wrapped his hand up with a slightly bloodied rag before heading off. When he enters another hallway, he finds a blocked doorway to another room. Through the door's windows, he saw Father Martin on the other side, smiling when he saw Miles.

"Thank god, you survived. I feared that secular maniac would carve you up like the others. Meet me outside, we're close now."

Then before Miles could get a word in edgewise, Martin disappeared into another room, his receding footsteps echoing across the tile floor. Miles sighs, "Goddamnit Martin. . .", before heading off to where Father Martin wanted him to go, which was ironically where Trager jokingly showed him before taking him into his own personal hell.

He walked out into the darkened courtyard. Rain drizzled down on him, making Miles smile to himself because the rain reminded him he was still here and that gave him at least some hope that he would get out of this nightmare alive. He finds the same fountain that Ella, Waylon, and he passed.

"Shit. Ella. Waylon. Where are they? Are they alive?"

Miles frowned as he realized he had no clue where his friends were. He wasn't very religious, but he prayed that they were okay. But if Miles knew where they were and what was happening to them, he would know for a fact they wouldn't be okay.

Not at all.

_**X X X**_

_**Waylon/Ella**_

Waylon woke up to the sound of screaming and the horrifying buzz of a saw blade. He opened his eyes groggily, his vision blurred slightly. He blinked a couple of times before the blur went away and he looked out the window slits of the locker door. He saw the table saw had a man strapped to it and Eddie was standing over him, a nasty looking blade in his hand. The man on the table was screaming bloody murder as Gluskin came closer.

"Darling, I need you to try to bleed less. I know the fairer sex often endure the same wounds with more suffering, but you really need to make an effort."

Eddie then brought the blade to the man's skin, slicing from his chest down to his groin. Then the man kept screaming and wailing before going quiet. Eddie just sighed, unstrapping the man's body from the table and throwing him to the ground. The man groans softly in pain before being silenced by Eddie's boot.

"Shut up, you whore! You've given up. You're ugly and you've given up on love. You're not even worth stringing up. Bleed here. . .and die."

Then Eddie went over to the locker and smiled wide when he saw Waylon was awake. Ella was still passed out next to him, but she stirred when she felt Eddie's presence. The Groom opened the door to the locker and pulled out Waylon, who was still weak and lightheaded from the fumes so he couldn't fight back even if he wanted to. The transition from standing up in the locker to being forcibly pulled out of the locker made the world spin, so Waylon shut his eyes and ended up passing out once more.

_** X X X**_

_**Miles**_

Outside the courtyard was cast in pure darkness and the rain sure didn't help matters. The night vision on Miles' camera was working slightly unless he got one of the gas-powered lamps in the shot, then he would be nearly blinded as the night vision's infrared didn't blend well with the bright lamplight. As Miles wandered around the courtyard, rain dripping down on him, he finds a small old shed which he enters and sees the key to the maintenance shed. He grabs it and leaves, walking down the cobblestone path before being stopped by a shadow seeming to float across his felid of vision.

He films the darkness and it looks almost humanoid as it floats away into the rain, making his heart nearly leaps out his chest. Shaking his head to clear his head of the fear, he keeps going down the path and towards the gated door of the maintenance shed. He unlocks the door and walks inside.

The first room was littered with broken glass and dirt. That room led into a hallway that branched off into two separate rooms. Miles went investigate the room on the right, a shelf and what looked like propane tanks lined the wall. As he opened the door to go further in, a ghostly figure that must have been the Walrider rushed him, but passed through Miles like nothing before disappearing behind him.

"God help me, I think I've seen the Walrider."

_**X X X**_

_**Waylon/Ella**_

When he woke up again, he had been completely stripped and strapped to the table with a buzzsaw aimed at his genitals. Eddie smiled down at him, rubbing his hand across the young man's chest.

"You have amazing bone structure. Such soft skin. You're going to be beautiful. A woman. . .has to suffer some things. It's not pleasant, I know. But just try to. . .endure. For my sake. For the sake of our children."

Waylon felt his stomach turn as Eddie's fingers trailed down his legs and back to his collarbone.

"It won't take long. A few snips of the flesh here, and here. Cut away everything. . . .vulgar. A soft place to welcome my seed. To grow our family."

Waylon heard Ella mutter inside the locker, "Eddie. . .don't."

Then Eddie turned on the saw, before smiling once more at his bride to be, "I'll make the cut fast. Just close your eyes and think of our children."

Eddie walked away, leaving the buzzsaw coming closer and closer to Waylon. He struggled against his bonds, but they held fast. Just as the saw was about to slice into Waylon's body, Eddie was back in the room and he wasn't alone. He was being attacked by another variant, who shoved the Groom against the already old and withered table, which caused the table to collapse, the saw falling harmlessly to the ground along with Waylon.

The enraged Eddie picked the saw blade and slashed the assaulting variant across the stomach before shoving him to the ground. Eddie was furious as he held the saw above his head, only to be struck in the back of the head by Ella, who apparently was awake and ready to fight. The Groom crumpled to the floor, saw falling from his grasp.

Waylon had gotten up and was slipping his prisoner jumpsuit back on while Gluskin had been attacking the variant. When he walked over to where the dying variant was, he noticed Ella had tears in her eyes as she stared at the man. This variant seemed very different from the other patients of Mount Massive.

His eyes were a light green.

Ella held the man's hand in her lap as he stared up at her, smiling slightly.

"I remember you."

Ella nodded, speaking seemed lost on her.

Then man grimaced in pain, holding his injured stomach with one arm, "It hurts, it hurts so much."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't. . .be. Just promise me one thing. Don't forget about me. About what they did to us."

Ella cried softly, "I won't."

"Campbell."

"What?"

"Before you left me earlier, you asked me. . .my name."

Ella hugged the dying man and Campbell hugged her with one weak arm. Waylon watched the display with sadness in his heart. This man didn't deserve this fate. No one did.

"Don't forget. Please."

Then the variant took one more breath and went still.

Campbell was gone.

_**X X X**_

_**That ending part just came to be a couple of days ago after realizing the green-eyed variant could be more. . .supportive character to Ella.**_

_**Hope you liked that ending part even though it wasn't in the game or anything.**_


	17. Could Have Been Beautiful

Miles was really starting to hate Chris Walker.

The hulking variant seemed to hound Miles at every turn, huffing and growling like a mad dog. Now even though there was no way he could have been there, Walker was in the area Miles just entered. He didn't know if the large variant could see well in the dark, but Miles wasn't taking any chances and kept low as he snuck around the open area of the courtyard. He passed through a fenced-in concrete area, seeing several variants around, one stopped him in his tracks with a single question.

"How do you know you're not a patient?"

Miles was already doubting his sanity and that question didn't help matters as he tried to ignore the patient and continue his escape. Miles went up some concrete stairs and found a stack of wooden pallets that helped him as he pulled himself up to the roof of a building. The roof was slick with the rain and it only got worse as the downpour continued. The reporter shimmied along the wall's edge, praying silently he wouldn't fall to his death on the barbed wire fence he passed. He jumped down after he got to where he wanted to.

He saw an alleyway that led somewhere, but as he went down it, Chris Walker came down the stairs and saw Miles. The larger man's breathing grew heavy and his chains jingling grew louder as he charged after Miles.

"Come here, little pig. We're not done here!"

Miles ran until he couldn't hear Walker's angry raspy breathing and then he circled around and ran down the alleyway, turning right and saw a hole leading to an open window which led into another building, the Vocational Block.

Little did he know he was walking right into the arms of Gluskin.

_**X X X**_

"Ella. Ella, we have to go."

Ella barely heard the words come out of Waylon's mouth as she stared at Campbell's lifeless body with a dull stare that mirrors his own, his green eyes no longer bright as he lay in her arms. She carefully set the man down and covered his body with a nearby sheet on a table. Waylon didn't try to hurry her any further but kept a wary eye on the unconscious form of Eddie Gluskin, who was stirring slightly. Ella stood up from Campbell's body and nodded to Waylon. She was ready. The two former employees backed away and hid in the adjoining room as Eddie got up, rubbing the back of his head. He looked around for Ella and Waylon, that damned grin never leaving his face.

Eddie may have had a smile on his face, but his eyes were full of deranged joy and murder.

"My dear, you've got quite the sucker punch there. But enough games. He will be my bride and **one little whore isn't going to stop me!"**

The next room looked like a dusty basement or a workshop had dozens of shelves, all filled with various boxes and sheets and junk. Waylon kept the camera on the Groom as he searched for them. He called out to him, his voice almost sounding like he meant everything he said, the promises of love and family. But Waylon knew if he let Gluskin catch them, he would show them the same mercy he has shown his other "brides".

They were able to escape after Eddie was down in the far corner of the room, they ran down another hallway and turned left, hearing him shout another string of curses all the while. They kept going down the large hallway, passing several rooms until they went into the room at the end of the hall on the right.

The room had a couple mannequin's dressed in short dresses and a large poster board with illegible writing and smudged drawings. Eddie's footsteps pounded after them, Waylon nearly stumbled due to his leg wound but kept going until they reach a dead end. There only escape was a broken window leading to the courtyard several feet below.

Seeing no other alternative, they jumped out the window.

_**X X X**_

The Vocational Block was a madhouse of gore and bodies. Miles walked around, keeping his camera ready to illuminate the darkened hallways with the night vision. He was so horrifyingly intrigued by the mutilated corpses that he didn't see the man until it was too late. He bumped right into The Groom. Eddie stared at the newcomer, the smile on his scarred face was unnerving.

Hell, the knife was pretty unnerving too.

"And who might you be?"

Miles didn't give the crazed man an answer, instead, he turned right around and ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran back outside just to see Waylon and Ella jump from the window and crash beside him. Ella looked up at him, fear in her eyes. She thought for sure that it was Gluskin, ready to gut them. But her fears when away when she was might with Miles' smiling, yet tired face.

"Miles! You're alive!"

Ella pulled the taller man into a hug and Miles hugged back. Waylon smiled at them and opened his arms, "Oh, I love group hugs." and hugged his friends. That made Miles laugh a bit. Because despite all the hell they've all gone through, they could still feel some joy in each other.

After the whole group hugging was done, Ella noticed Miles was missing his ring and index finger. She went slightly green as the blood had dried on his hand. Miles noticing her staring and his usual grinning face went away, replaced by a look of what almost looked like fear.

"Trager." was all he said before turning to Waylon. Last time the two men saw each other, Waylon was a stuttering crazed variant. Now he seemed to be relatively normal again. Waylon smiled at the younger man, but then he too saw the reporter's fingers and it vanished, replaced by a solemn expression.

"Miles?"

"Waylon?"

"I'm dearly sorry for everything you've been through. This is all my fault."

Miles sighed, but shook away the feelings of exhaustion, "It's fine. The world needs to know what Murkoff's doing."

Waylon nodded, determination in his eyes, "Then let's tell the whole fucking world."

_**X X X**_

Miles had already started to hate being drugged and waking up in random places, he hated Chris Walker and the man's unwavering determination to murder him. But what he really hated the most?

The one thing he hated the most was having to find a fucking key every ten minutes!

So when they came to a locked door inside the Vocational Block, which led to the Administration Block and found it was locked, they all agreed to stick together to find. They all knew they've been separated far too many times. They went down a hallway and turned left and entered what looked like a small kitchen before seeing there was no way through except for a vent, so Miles went through first, then Waylon and finally Ella.

Then they dropped down into a gymnasium. And hanging high above them, all strung up like skinned animals in a butcher shop, were hundreds of dead bodies. Miles filmed the massacre and Ella puked nosily onto the already dirty floor, prompting Waylon to keep her steady.

**"Bodies hanging like wet laundry, like skinned rabbits. Men mutilated, hunted, and murdered. The shortest distance between any two points separates violence and ruined lust. Whatever story he's telling himself, he's not making women to bear his children, he's making women to kill them."  
**

**"This man thinks he's in love. He thinks the therapy made him better. Everything reeks of death and fear. Piss and coppery blood, meat decomposing to game."**

They went past all the gore and into the darkened hallway, the floor littered with broken glass and blood stains. Miles took the front, Waylon in the rear, and Ella was in the middle of the two men. They barely took two steps when they heard Eddie's deep voice once more, singing a tune.

". . .Get married, boy, and see how happy you will be. I have dadadadada. . .that I find, who. . .Who seems to be just like the little girl I have in mind. I will have to look around, until the right one I have found."

They continued down the hallway as Eddie's singing seemed to be getting closer and closer. Miles checked some doors, only to find they were locked or led to dead ends. Then Waylon saw a wire fence door and pushed it open and they all quickly went down the hall and into what looked like a wedding chapel.

Chairs lined the walls and the long walkway seemed a lot cleaner than the rest of Mount Massive. The far end of the room though, that was a different story. There was a dead body, standing straight somehow, in a wedding dress. The key was in it's dead hand and Ella grabbed it, pocketing it. That's when they heard Gluskin behind them.

"Filthy sluts. You're like all the others! You don't deserve my children."

Miles turned and ran into another room next to the chapel, squeezing past a shelf that blocked the way. Then Waylon and Ella did the same, just as Eddie's knife came dangerously close to where Ella's head was not even a second ago. There was a heavy metal box in front of the door and both Miles and Waylon pushed it out of the way, then Ella opened the door and they ran as fast as they could, the Groom's shouts were getting increasingly vulgar and violent. The trio was back out in the same hallway again and stopped to hide under a table as Eddie came out off the room seconds later, visibly angered.

"You belong with the others. You sluts!"

As Eddie disappeared down another hallway, Ella, Waylon, and Miles ran back to the gymnasium, climbed into the vent, and back into the kitchen. They ran out of the kitchen and into the hallway where the door leading back to the Administration Block was.

As Waylon was unlocking the door, his friends were suddenly attacked by the irate Gluskin, who punched and kicked cursed. Waylon was struck in the back of the head, leaving him dazed as The Groom dragged him and his friends back to the gymnasium.

"One more. I try and I try. And you all betray me."

He threw Ella and Miles across the room and grabbed Waylon by the throat. Gone was Eddie's gentlemanly charm, which was replaced with animalistic rage and murder.

"Those two don't deserve a quick death. You, on the other hand, you can hang like the rest of them!"

Gluskin wrapped a noose around Waylon's neck from the pulley system and pulled downward hard, slowly hanging and choking Waylon. Eddie grunted slightly, straining against Waylon's weight.

"Heavier than you look. If this is you on the honeymoon, I'd hate to imagine our anniversary."

Waylon pulled and pulled against the rope, trying to snap it and break free, but it was no use as he just kept pulling the noose tighter and tighter around his neck.

"Hold still. Goddamnit, what are you. . .Damn it, darling! No, you need to behave. Agh! No, no, no, no. . ."

As Waylon kept struggling to break free, the ceiling, already weak from decades of old age, cracked and splintered, causing Waylon to nearly falling to the ground He was hurt slightly, but alive nonetheless. The same couldn't be said for Eddie though.

The Groom had been impaled in the stomach by one of the iron poles, Gluskin had managed to grab Waylon's hand and for a second, Eddie's eyes looked the same when he yelled for Waylon that he could stop everything. He looked so sad, yet so happy as he held Waylon's hand one last time.

"We could have been beautiful. . ."

Then Waylon dropped to the ground as the rope snapped, impaling Gluskin even more on the pole and his body went limp.

The Groom was gone.


	18. Passion Of Father Martin

Richard Trager was dead. Eddie Gluskin was dead. And Walker was nowhere to be found. Miles knew they were almost free, he could feel it. They just had to go a little further and they'd escape this nightmare. They returned to the Administration Block soon after Gluskin's demise. Miles didn't even flinch when he saw Eddie's body, just hanging there with an iron pole stabbed through his abdomen.

"You got everything you deserved, you sick fuck."

The trio kept walking down a hallway, a variant was in a corner before the corridor branched off muttering to himself, "Only one way out, only one way." and Miles figured out he was trying to help them. Miles turned down the hallway and nearly had a heart attack as Walker was down the hallway and he saw Miles, his breathing grew heavier and he charged after them once more.

They ran down another hallway, ignoring most of the rooms before Miles burst into one and slammed the door behind them. He looked around frantically for an exit or somewhere to hide. Walker's booming footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway. Ella saw the air vent, which was big enough for a person, had been opened up. So they climbed into the air vent with Miles leading the way. Not a second too soon as they got into the vent, Walker burst into the room, breathing out angry animalistic growls.

"Goddammit. I'll find you."

The group went crawled through the vent before reaching an opening. There was a dead security guard in the way so Miles pushed the corpse out of the way and they jumped down from the opening in front of where all this started for Miles. The library looked the same as when Miles went through it. And Miles really didn't want to go through it again, so they ignored it and instead went through a door on the right.

They entered the second floor which held different rooms like the chapel, library, recreation hall, and the lobby. Miles saw someone walked down the stair and motion for them to come over, so Ella and Waylon walked over with him. The variant looked at them before speaking only to Miles.

"You're him. Yes, I'm supposed to tell you: the key to the house of God is in the theater. Behind the light. In the theater, behind the light. You have to see the movie. So that's where he left the card. Okay?"

Then a voice was heard from upstairs, it seemed to be Father Martin.

"Friends. Children. I need your help. Where are you?"

"Yes. Coming. I'm coming."

Then the variant climbed back up the steps, leaving the group of friends slightly confused. Miles turned to his companions, smiling slightly.

"So who wants to go see a movie?"

_**X X X**_

Upon entering the Recreation Hall, they passed a door behind which a Variant is playing the piano. The man suddenly stopped playing, went to the door and stared at where Miles, Waylon, and Ella were and shook his head in disappointment before walking away from view. Then they entered the theater, Waylon looked around, quite surprised.

"I didn't even know we had a theater! Or a chapel." Waylon frowned, and pouted slightly, "I never see anything."

Miles smiled at his friend, "Ah, don't worry about it, Park. Once we are out of here, I'll buy you two a drink and show you guys some real fun."

Ella smiled, "Sounds like a plan. If we even get out of here."

Miles nodded, "Fair enough."

They took a few more steps into the darkened cinema before the projector turned on, flooding the room with light as a movie started to play out. There was an old man talking about spontaneous bleeding, tumors, psychosomatic reactions in the mental patients of the asylum. He appears to be talking to some kind of government official.

**"The man sounds like Dr. Strangelove's anemic brother. It's a twenty-five-year-old audio recording, an interview with this Dr. Wernicke. Los Alamos means government work. Wernicke talks about spontaneous bleeding, tumors, psychosomatic reactions in sufficiently disturbed people. Seems to walk a line between science and Nazi mysticism.**

**"Only a test subject who had witnessed enough horror was capable of activating the engine."**

**"The Morphogenic Engine."**

**"The Engine. The movie they're projecting. It gets in my head like a song you can't stop humming.**

**I blink and I see Rorschach tests that look like swarming insects and infected surgical wounds."**

**The patients talk about using the Engine to conjure the Walrider. It's the buzzing I hear in my bones."**

Miles left to go find the key, leaving Waylon and Ella to keep an eye out for Walker or any variant that could pose a threat. It took him a little bit and a lot of jumping over things, but he was able to find the key and make his way back down to the other two.

The trio of friends makes their way back to the main floor of the second story and Miles opens the gated door of the stairwell to the chapel. They had to make another jump as part of the upper stairs was gone. After all that, they managed to enter the chapel, which was being guarded by those cannibalistic twins.

They smiled eerily at Miles but said nothing. Instead, they opened the double doors and Miles entered the chapel, but when Waylon and Ella tried to, the short twin stopped them with an outstretched arm.

"Only the apostle can enter. You both may stay out here and wait for him."

Waylon was about to protest but saw Miles shaking his head and he kept quiet. Miles nodded his thanks to his friends and walked down the church's aisle. Father Martin was strapped to a large wooden cross, he is surrounded by a large group of variants, one had a torch in hand. When Martin saw Miles, he smiles down at his apostle.

"My Job. You alone shall escape to tell them. This is your penultimate act of witness. The promise of the prophets was always freedom from death. And here it is."

"You will watch and record my death, my resurrection. And together we will be free. You are no longer in any danger. I've fixed the elevator. It will take you to freedom. We will all of us be free."

He turned his gaze to one of the variants and nodded, "Now, my son."

Miles filmed the scene before him and watched in horror as the variant put his torch to the gas-soaked bed sheets covering the bottom of the cross and the cross went up in flames within seconds. Father Martin started to burn fast and hot as he screamed out in agony for a few seconds, then his head hung down and he was gone. Father Martin was with Him now. Forever and ever.

**"Miles Upshur. Audio Log. . .again."**

**"I can't believe Father Martin one-upped Jesus Christ himself in shitty ways to die. And I don't believe I'm going to miss him. A way out. If he's telling the truth, now I've got a way out. And a story to tell. He wants me to spread his gospel. I'll tell the whole fucking world."**

Miles grabbed the key from a table nearby and he went back to where he left Ella and Waylon. Both former Murkoff employees were eyeing the Twins with wary gazes, but then calm down slightly when Miles came back. They had seen it all through the chapel's windows and Ella looked like she was going to be sick again. Miles nodded to the Twins, who once again didn't say anything, and led the way back to the elevator.

Key in hand, Miles entered the elevator, Waylon and Ella close behind. As the elevator doors slid close, Miles put the key in the slot at the end of all the buttons and turned it. The elevator began it's descent back down to the exit. It stopped at the main lobby. . .

. . .And kept going down?!

Miles almost broke down screaming, his yells a mixture of anger and despair, "No! No! No! Please, Goddamnit. I was so close to freedom!"

Miles slid down to the floor of the elevator and sobbed, completely consumed by crazed despair. They were so close. The elevator continued it's descent until a faint ding was heard and Ella and Waylon went white with fear and shock. They were back down in the Underground Lab. Freedom was right in front of them.

Now?

Now it's just a couple thousand feet above them with no way to reach it.


	19. No Going Back (Final Chapter)

The bowels of Mount Massive were as grim and gore covered as the rest of the asylum. During the descent into what seemed like literal hell, Miles recovered from his mental breakdown with a disturbing sense of determination. He wasn't going to lie down and cry like a baby. He was Miles Upshur and he wasn't going to let this place break him. Both Ella and Waylon stared at him with a mixture of emotions in their eyes, some fear, some burning anger, and even joy. There were no words between the three, but they knew what they had to do.

They were as ready as he was to face the hell that was Mount Massive.

They walked through the white-washed hallways, the walls and ceiling seemed to be made of ice or at least something that looked like it. Then they opened a set of double doors into the lobby and saw the blood streaking across the ground, broken and bloodied bodies slumped against walls. The normal massacre the friends had grown used to.

Miles filmed everything around them, before flipping the camera over to film his face and Waylon and Ella.

**"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."**

**"Whoever finds our corpses- trust no one and tell everyone. I am not crazy. I know, I know, only crazy people say that. But I am as sane as this world allows, with a camera full of evidence. Don't call it gospel. Call it a mockery of reason, let the world know it is Murkoff's fault. Bury these bastards with our mutilated dead bodies."**

Then they walked around the lobby, stepping over large puddles of guts and blood, before finding a broken decontamination chamber. They went through into another large cavern of a hallway, Miles, and Ella using the night vision to find their way through the darkness. They kept pushing forward until the darkness ebbed away with more light. They went past a couple of rooms, all covered in blood and body parts, before reaching a sign that read **"Delivery Exit"**. That sparked some hope inside the three friends, an exit meant an escape. And escape meant they'd be free of this nightmare.

Then they see it, just behind a glass window, was freedom. The large room had sunlight pouring inside from a hangar door opening. Ella went nearly crazy with happiness, hugging Waylon and Miles both, yelling with joy.

"Oh thank God. We're gonna get out of here!"

The two men smiled at their friend's joy and couldn't help but feel that same happiness too. They had this, they were free. They just had to walk through another hallway and they would escape this hell.

Of course, each time they thought they were free, Mount Massive seemed to squeeze it's horrid grip on them a little tighter, not wanting to let these victims leave. As they walked through a shorter hallway and turned left down a dark hallway. There it was. The door to freedom. They just had walk a few more steps and they'd finally be free. Miles stepped forward before the others then an alarm blared loudly as the door shut tight. Then something even worse happened.

The Walrider appeared in front of the door, howling softly like a ghost. Miles instantly turned around and ran, Waylon and Ella, keeping close behind as the ghostly Walrider chased after that. They didn't stop running until they reached the double doors at the end of the hallway.

And came face to face with Chris Walker. The giant of a variant grabbed them all in two meaty hands before throwing them down the hallway. He walked over to Miles, grunting angrily.

"Little pig, little pig. No more escape."

Unknowingly having put himself in the path of the charging Walrider, he is grabbed from behind and spiraled away from Miles, slamming into a wall. Miles watches in horror as the Walrider relentlessly beats him against the walls, he growls in rage and agony before being beaten so badly that he can do nothing more than meekly choke. Miles films as the Walrider lifts him up into the air and flies with him through a nearby closed air grate, forcing Walker's huge body through such a tiny area, which shreds his body and spills a massive amount of blood and guts on the surrounding area, killing him.

Miles kept his eyes were Walker was just a second ago before getting shakily up to his feet. His friends were several feet away, looking at the scene with terrified eyes. Miles turned back to where Walker's guts and blood lay at the ground.

**"This is the way you die. Ripped to pieces from the inside, watching your marrow scatter on a concrete wall. You've escaped one Hell, Chris Walker. God help me but I somehow hope you didn't find another."**

Miles stared at his friends once more, before speaking quietly, "Get out of here. You guys can still escape, go back to the elevator.

"Miles, we aren't leaving you down here to die.", Ella argued

"Just try and get back up to the surface. I still need to film some more and end this Walrider before it can hurt any more people and I don't want you guys to die because of this."

Ella sighed, knowing she wasn't going to change the stubborn mind of Miles, "Okay. Be careful."

Miles smiled once more, "Who me? Careful? Never."

Ella smiled back, despite the fear coursing through her veins and then hugged Miles one more time. Waylon joined the hug again and they all stayed there for a second before Waylon and Ella let go and walked back towards the exit. Miles stared ahead, no fear in his eyes. He was going to end this. Once and for all.

That's when an elderly voice spoke out from the room next to him.

"Is somebody there?"

_**X X X**_

The room next to Miles was separated by a wall of glass into two rooms. The larger section of the walled-off room looked like someone's office. There was a man in a motorized wheelchair who looked at the man before him. Miles knew this man. That was Rudolf Wernicke. And he was supposed to be dead. He couldn't be here.

But he was.

"I know, I-I, I know, I am supposed to be dead. No, no such luck. I am older than sin, but, somehow, the only one left. Because of Billy. He takes care of me. He may think I'm his father. He certainly loves me, the poor idiot."

Miles looked at the decaying man with a confused expression, Wernicke continued speaking and turned his gaze to a symbol on the wall.

"Do you know what this symbol represents? It warns of a nanohazard. Microscopic machines, technology we have had for decades, but never mastered.

Then Miles decided to speak, "What are you saying, Wernicke?"

"Murkoff discovered, in my research, a work-around. Turning the cells of human bodies into nanofactories. It's the natural function of cells to produce molecules, but through psychosomatic direction, we engineered the precise molecules necessary. Mind over body. It was foolish and wrong to think we could control it. To use mad men to control something so strong."

Wernicke turned back to Miles, his eyes were old with age, but a fire burned deep in them, "You have to stop him, to murder Billy. Turn off his life support, his anesthesia. You have to undo what I've done. No one can get out of this place while he lives. You must kill him."

"I know, I'm going to end this."

"Billy doesn't mean harm. He's a child with a damaged mind, granted the powers of a God. It would make any of us into a monster. We all must die here."

"I'm not dying. Not today."

"He will spread if you don't stop him. The Morphogenic Engine is self-perpetuating. I pray to God you have the strength to end it here with your death. More than anything I want to rest. Billy will not let me die. He could never imagine how cruel this is. I only want to die."

Miles nodded, feeling almost bad for the old man who only wanted death, "I understand. I'll kill Billy. You have my word."

Miles waited for Wernicke to speak again, but the elderly man just closed his eyes and didn't say a word. So Miles left the room and went back out into the hallway. He moves deeper into the lab and finds Billy in his glass sphere, being kept alive by some type of equipment, it must have been the Morphogenic Engine. Billy had tubes coming out of his mouth, nose and even his ears. Miles looks at the poor man with a look of pity and disgust.

**"From Billy's patient reports, he ought to be twenty-three years old. He looks like at least fifty years of rough road, pain scratched deep into what I can see."**

**"Killing you would be an act of kindness."**

Miles then close the valve to the Life Support Fluid Reservoir which was across the room and then runs to disable the power across the lab, he has to climb some ladders and go across some catwalks. All the while the Walrider is chasing Miles throughout the chamber.

Miles disables the power within minutes and is running across the catwalk before he is grabbed by the Walrider. The ghostly entity throws Miles around then drops him so he falls down the hard floor several feet below. Miles gets up, clutching his ribs in pain as he limps towards the main chamber where Bill Hope is kept. He slammed his hand on the life-support's failsafe. Miles watches as Billy convulses and then goes still. Billy Hope was gone.

It was over.

No, it wasn't.

Miles was suddenly slammed against the glass sphere by the Walrider before being thrown across the room. He is elevated in the air before The Walrider fuses with Miles and he falls back down to the ground. Miles coughed up some blood from the hard fall and got back up. He limps towards the exit, he had to find Wernicke and tell him that Hope was dead. As he makes it towards the exit, the double doors open and Wernicke and several soldiers enter, weapons drawn. Miles put his hands up in surrender and looks towards Wernicke.

"Wernicke, Billy's dead. it's-"

Miles doesn't even get to finished his sentence as the guards open fire. Pain flares up in his body and Miles fell to the ground, his vision starts to go dark. Miles is dying and that's okay. At least now he was free. Then he heard the soldiers muttered in fear and Wernicke exclaim.

"Gott im Himmel. You have become the host."

_**X X X**_

Waylon and Ella made it back up to the surface using the elevator. Thank God Waylon still had his employee key with him all this time. They reach the Administration Block for the final time. Sunlight poured into the room and Waylon saw the door was wide open, they were almost done with this hell. Only one obstacle was blocking their way of freedom.

Jeremy Blaire was slumped against the wall next to the door, appearing to be injured badly. When he saw Waylon and Ella, he seemed surprised to see the two but smiled at them.

Ms. Ross. Mr. Park. How the fuck are you two still alive? Let's. . .make a deal. You help me, I'll help you."

Neither Waylon or Ella wanted to help Blaire. They had been through so much, there's no way in hell he was going to stopping them from getting out of this godforsaken place. They ignored Blaire's pleas for help and were almost out the door when Jeremy suddenly lunged at Waylon, knocking Ella to the side. Blaire was on top of Waylon with a knife aimed at his chest.

"Fucking DIE already. No one can know! No one!"

Then Waylon heard the ghostly howl that made his blood run cold. The Walrider appeared behind Blaire, picking up the Murkoff executive and lifting him up to the ceiling.

"Grah! What the fu. . .Urk. Oh, God! Oh, Christ in Heaven! How did it get out?! No! No, please! No! No! Ahhhhh!"

The Walrider offered no mercy and ripped Jeremy apart, scattering his blood everywhere. Ella helped Waylon up to his feet and they looked around for the Walrider. if it was up here then the surrounding town was doomed. But they stopped short when they saw in the midst of the swarm.

It was Miles.

Miles was pale as paper, bullet holes in his body, but somehow still alive. He was covered in the black aura of the Walrider. His eyes were pure darkness and he looked scared and tired. He stared back at his friends, his broken mind trying to remember their names.

"Ella. . Waylon. . ."

Oh, poor Miles sounded so sad and scared, it broke Waylon and Ella's hearts. Waylon went up to Miles, staying a bit away from the black swarm around him.

"Miles. I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Don't remember. Gunshots. Pain and screaming. So much screaming. Want to go home."

When Miles stated he wanted to go home, he sounded even more broken and sad. Ella teared up and held out her hand, Miles took it uncertainly, "You're gonna be okay, Miles. Let's go home."

"Home."

So the pair of friends left in Miles' red jeep, which was surprisingly still here after everything. They had done it. They were free. They escaped the hell that was Mount Massive.

But at what cost?

_**X X X**_

"You press that button, there's no going back, Mr. Park."

Ella and Miles stood in silently beside Waylon as he typed away on a laptop. He was sending the footage from Miles and Waylon's camera's to a leaking website. Before Waylon hit enter, he looked up at the man watching him and the man spoke to Waylon only.

"There's enough hard evidence in that video file to make a world of shit for our friends at Murkoff. You all got out of Mount Massive alive, and we've done everything in our power to cover your tracks, but our enemies are twitchy and malicious corporate paranoiacs with resources you're too moral to imagine. You won't be the only target. Anyone you care about, they'll be nothing to Murkoff but ways to hurt you. I need you to understand the bridge you're crossing here. You will do irrevocable damage to the company, you might even get close to something like justice. But. Once you click upload, your lives are over. Everyone you love is fucked. But it's the right thing to do. Is hurting Murkoff worth that much to you?"

Waylon let all that information sink in, before nodding. He knew what he had to do.

He pressed enter and their lives were changed forever.


End file.
